What is the objective of landscape photography? For me it is an amazing query; these places can be found in Mother Nature, and can be experienced by anyone.
So, the objective cannot be simply to record a memory, or provide those who have yet to see it the impression of having been there.
Anyone could do that with their cell phone.
No image could truly catch the magnificence of Zion, or the stately wonders Yellowstone.
And certainly excellent landscape pictures are captured at very meager locals.
Ian Ruhter is on a project to catch amazing landscape photos in the Skid Row of Los Angeles.
I have seen amazing pictures of snowstorms in North Dakota (no disrespect intended to the excellent people of Northern Dakota).
So, there must be something bigger to getting an excellent landscape image than just great scenery.
I am lucky, I live in Lake Tahoe.
I am a few hundred miles north of Yosemite and just west of the amazing Great Basin.
I certainly have no deficiency of amazing landscapes, and earn a fine living by selling the photographs that I create.
However, most of the images that I see from my buddies, visitors, or even those call themselves photographers, don't have that spark that would make some one want to purchase it.
When Ansel Adams looked upon a setting he desired to photograph, he did not look at it as it existed, but rather as how he could recreate it as a print.
Was there too much contrast from the highlights to the shadows? He knew how to compensate for that.
Was the sky too light? He knew how to bring it back in the final print.
He was not just taking pictures as he saw them, but rather he was creating art in the way his mind saw the scene.
The photographer crafts his image to be the way his mind sees it.
Otherwise what is the point of being a photographer? Anyone with a camera, which is everyone these days, can snap pictures.
F8 and be there is not enough anymore, and really it never was.
Great photographers create art; the camera is their brush, light is their paint, pixels or film is their canvas, the scene in front of them is their subject.
In some sense, painters and other visual artists have it much simpler.
A painter has a blank slate and his creativity to express the emotions he desires to communicate, but the Landscape Photographer has to cope with the real life.
We must use what we see, in the way that we see them to express our emotions, for if we cut and insert things into our image, can no longer call ourselves photographers.
So how does a landscape photographer craft an image if he must capture the world as he sees it? We have a number of resources to use to shape what we see: We can change our lenses, and the perspectives that we shoot; we can use film, because each type has different characteristics; what paper we print on, we can alter tonal values, or add filters.
Those are just some of the large number of options we can use to impact the image and manage the final print.
We are only restricted by our perspective and our style.
So, why landscape photography? Because it is one of the most complicated styles there is.
Getting beyond just snapping photos of a nice lake or stone or flower, and getting into actually expressing emotions is a huge step that includes much forethought, preparation, and really seeing the world differently.
That is your task as a landscape photographer.
Go see the world different, go show them the emotions that everyone else missed.
So, the objective cannot be simply to record a memory, or provide those who have yet to see it the impression of having been there.
Anyone could do that with their cell phone.
No image could truly catch the magnificence of Zion, or the stately wonders Yellowstone.
And certainly excellent landscape pictures are captured at very meager locals.
Ian Ruhter is on a project to catch amazing landscape photos in the Skid Row of Los Angeles.
I have seen amazing pictures of snowstorms in North Dakota (no disrespect intended to the excellent people of Northern Dakota).
So, there must be something bigger to getting an excellent landscape image than just great scenery.
I am lucky, I live in Lake Tahoe.
I am a few hundred miles north of Yosemite and just west of the amazing Great Basin.
I certainly have no deficiency of amazing landscapes, and earn a fine living by selling the photographs that I create.
However, most of the images that I see from my buddies, visitors, or even those call themselves photographers, don't have that spark that would make some one want to purchase it.
When Ansel Adams looked upon a setting he desired to photograph, he did not look at it as it existed, but rather as how he could recreate it as a print.
Was there too much contrast from the highlights to the shadows? He knew how to compensate for that.
Was the sky too light? He knew how to bring it back in the final print.
He was not just taking pictures as he saw them, but rather he was creating art in the way his mind saw the scene.
The photographer crafts his image to be the way his mind sees it.
Otherwise what is the point of being a photographer? Anyone with a camera, which is everyone these days, can snap pictures.
F8 and be there is not enough anymore, and really it never was.
Great photographers create art; the camera is their brush, light is their paint, pixels or film is their canvas, the scene in front of them is their subject.
In some sense, painters and other visual artists have it much simpler.
A painter has a blank slate and his creativity to express the emotions he desires to communicate, but the Landscape Photographer has to cope with the real life.
We must use what we see, in the way that we see them to express our emotions, for if we cut and insert things into our image, can no longer call ourselves photographers.
So how does a landscape photographer craft an image if he must capture the world as he sees it? We have a number of resources to use to shape what we see: We can change our lenses, and the perspectives that we shoot; we can use film, because each type has different characteristics; what paper we print on, we can alter tonal values, or add filters.
Those are just some of the large number of options we can use to impact the image and manage the final print.
We are only restricted by our perspective and our style.
So, why landscape photography? Because it is one of the most complicated styles there is.
Getting beyond just snapping photos of a nice lake or stone or flower, and getting into actually expressing emotions is a huge step that includes much forethought, preparation, and really seeing the world differently.
That is your task as a landscape photographer.
Go see the world different, go show them the emotions that everyone else missed.
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