What makes a good landscape
 

A simple non-technical question :rolleyes:


Adey had expressed an opinion that most landscape photography in the UK makes it look much better than it really is.

Are some part of the UK more scenic than others and therefore a gift to landscape photographers ?

Is it case of being in the right spot at the time ?

I often look for inspiration in some of the photo mags view points. Some of the places suggested you may know of and I think surely not. Others you trek to and find the scene in question is only a few hundred metres in size.


What are your views, comments and tips ?

I believe the comment I made was something along the lines of: if we only shoot landscapes in 'dramatic' lighting it can give the impression that it's always like that in this country. Ironically, Carl Baggott and I were standing atop Croft Hill here in the middle of the country this morning surveying the vista - or rather, not surveying the vista as yet another grey, murky day followed a run of similar days. We often comment that anyone trying to make money out of photography would be much better off going abroad!

So, does waiting for suitable lighting make for a good landscape or does 'showing it as it really is' fill the bill?

If you're after a shot for a calendar then it's probably got to be dramatic lighting, or at least fluffy clouds in a deep blue sky.

I rather like those little 'vignettes' taken from the overall scene - the 5-bar gate slightly open leading into the corner of a field surrounded by an old hedge and such like. (this is probably because all the overall views around here are spoilt by lines of power cables and pylons, so you have to look for something closer or more limiting in view).

Some of the more 'famous' views have been done too much as far as being reproduced in magazines, etc., are concerned - I'll be quite happy if I never see another shot of Durdle Dor or Buachaille Etive Mor, however attractive they may be!

Non technical yes, simple, you must be joking ;)

I will have to give this more thought, though clearly its difficult to give a definitive answer. I don't think this is a subject you can be prescriptive about. However I think you have touched on something that I firmly believe and that is that to be in the right place at the right time is often paramount in getting the right feel that makes a great photo.

I often refer people to the wonderful work of Scott Dommin
Also the work of the Time Catcher team all stunning Landscape photography.

For me the light is paramount too, it can make or break a shot, but its often luck to be there when the light is at its best. This is amply illustrated by a couple of shots I took in '04 on a trip to New England. The Nuble Light on the coast of Maine is a classic lighthouse, but I managed to catch at sunset, exactly the right time.

I agree with you 100% on this point. :mad:

It's starting to come back as to why I stopped taking landscapes.

Scotney Castle just down the road from me is another cliche.

Robski

Your question has been simmering in the back of my mind for some time, and the answer is elusive.
If you get two people standing side by side on the brow of a high hill looking out over a beautifully sunlit vista, I would like to bet they both see something different to each other.
Take it one stage further, one has a camera, and frames his view, takes a shot of it, and a week later post processes it, 10 – 1 the other party when shown the scene, probably will not recognize it.

Years ago, nearly 50 to be exact, I took a shot of the bridge over the River Axe at Withy pool on Exmoor. It was meant to record a Dull Overcast Miserable Gray scene completely uninviting and why did we come here sort of thing. When the photos came back from the lab weeks later, the colors of the garden flowers bordering the river and the beautiful pink and white washed thatched cottages along with the rolling varied greens and reds of the fields were amazing. The picture I thought I had taken was in my mind.

Hope this makes some sort of sense.

Brian

I think what prostie is saying is that we are inspired by different things within the landscape. These days I think that landscapes have been done to death and people are sick of "Chocolate box twee" or even light dramatic in some cases. Personally landscapes in general do not inspire me at all. I am very much a colourist and often there is not enough colour in our landscape to excite. Occasionally though I will be drawn to a smaller composition. I think when taking landscapes though just taking the photo often isnt enough. I think sometimes it takes careful editing and cropping to really show just what inspired you in the first place.

What makes a good landscape? Not a simple question by any means. In order to explore this further, I would ask "What is a landscape?". A landscape to me could be described as:
A photo taken outdoors that does not contain a specific, singular, point of interest.
As such, a landscape to me is a topic that has a huge scope of potential. As others have said before, there are some scenes that have been done to death, to me, this lacks imagination. There are times when I lack imagination too and I find it easy to take the picture from the same viewpoint as seen on countless postcard images. I am lazy as charged your honour.

What makes a good landscape is an interpretation of a well known spot that hasn't been seen a thousand times on jigsaw box lids. There are many spots arount the world that have never had their picture published. This doesn't mean they are dull and uninteresting. Every photographer, of whatever experience, has their own style and interpretation of the view in front of them, it is up to each individual to make what they can of the scene.

I'd much rather see an imaginative detail that has previously gone un-noticed than a wide angle vista that I've seen a thousand times before. As for lighting, yes, it plays a big part. Again, I'd rather see imaginative use of light at different times of year, in different weather conditions rather than only thinking of the "golden hour" just before sunset. Yes, it will take more effort to get something presentable but if you can pull something different out of the hat then that's what makes a good landscape to my mind.

Good question in the original post, thank you.

Duncan

I cannot get to grips with "Landscape" shots.In fact I have p/ex 2 good wide angled lenses,'cos the image I saw with my eyes,is not the image I see on the pc screen/printed pic.I cannot seem to produce the full grandeur of the mountains in the distance,esp when they have snow on the tops.I seem to have more success with sunsets across the sea.Much more colour and definition.Perhaps it is because my main interest is wildlife shots,whereby one can pick up clear close up detail.Or more possibly my lack of expertise in understanding cam settings means that I do not obtain the best results for distant shots.

I agree that this is very important to a good landscape shot and we only have to look at some of arneig's stunning work to see how that can make dramatic landscapes.

We had an interesting evening at our club a little while ago that demonstrates this point exactly. One member showed us a shot that he had taken. He had been driving down a lane when he saw a view, reversed up and took the shot only to be quite disappointed when he viewed it at home. He then gave the image to two of our best post processors as a challenge to see what they could make of it (with adding any Jessop's sheep or clouds) The end results were vastly different from the "out of the camera" shot. One had gone for a mono print, the other staying with colour. But the thing that both had done was enhance the subtle shaddows and highlight in the field, brought out the textures & tone in the sky and generally inproved the balance & drama of the shot, to the point where they had brought out what the guy who took the shot had seen. Not really photography some would say, but its no more than good darkroom printers have been doing for years!

One of our experienced club members always says that a good landscape shot should lead you into and through the picture. I've just had a browse through our own members shots in the rural landscape and there are some great examples of this & I hope they won't mind me linking to them to ilustrate this point.

Adey's Early Spring in The Vosges... - the snow covered wall in the foreground leads the eye to the right and then it is brough back by the road curling into the image towards the house.

Prostie's electric blue - strong diagonals lead the eye in from both sides and up the telegraph pole

Vidler's Findhorn Valley the little stream brings you in and the dark hills on the right stop your eye escaping and lead you back round.

Lifeboatman's Sunset over Llangbedrog the waves braking in the shore lead and then the headland in the distance brings the eye again.

Christine's Winter Sunset - one of my personal fav's - the water leads form left to right, snakes back to the left and finally disappears out to the right where my eye is caught by that glorious sunset.

We have soooooo much talent on this forum :D we only have to look through the galleries to see what makes a great landscape and, in my view, it comes down to composition & lighting.

Some interesting ideas and thoughts on the subject. Of late my general photography style has tended to be a singular point of interest. It won't stop me taking the odd snap of the right place and time sunset or vista. I have long given up hunting these scenes down. What made me think about it again was after chatting to a guy who took backgound shots for the local TV weather spot. Up at all hours chasing dramatic weather, sunrises and sunsets.

I suspect there are no 'rules', though nothing is exempt these days from fashion or fashionable formula. Perhaps start from the other end.

This is a fantastic country for walking as there is such a variety of scenery and light, often within short spans of time and distance. Yesterday I went to London by train and the blossom against the spring grass and water was breathtaking over the Chilterns and Thames valley, transforming a usually boring journey, even on a dull overcast day. No camera, nothing to bring back.

The challenge is to find a way of portraying and sharing the outdoors...by trying to get something of the space and breadth into a rectangular frame. Some things just work and some don't. Letting the mind auto-run on the frame and what it might contain helps. So does digital as one can bin the failures with nowt lost.

Most people would not call this a landscape shot,but I like it as it shows the starkness of the dunes agains't the sky,with the some of the sunset showing through the clouds,and the 3 solitary dog walkers as specks on the beach.It was very dark,as it was taken in the late evening,so I lightened it and applied a filter which gives the sand a grainy look .
If this shot had been taken during the day,it would have just looked like another plain beach/sand dune shot.
But sometimes I read into images, things which are not there,so to anyone else it may just seem a somewhat dark shot of the sand dunes.

If anyone views this image,could they please explain to me,why the sky area seems to be pixelated.I have noticed this in sky areas on images prev.Is there a reason,is it because it has been drastically lightened?.

Perhaps, but also maybe overcompression. 58kb seems low for an 800pixel wide image

Stephen ,I resized this image from its normal 72 to 300,then dropped it down to 800 wide,but when I saw the pixels in the sky line put it back to the original 72,and just upped everything to 800 wide again.there should not be anything with the no 58.

Christine, so long as you don't resample the image in the image size dialogue of PS the resolution makes no difference. It is the pixel width and height that are important, and I don't see that would have an effect on the blockyness effect of your image.

However the file size of a little over 58kb may do. Here is a screen grag showing the details over your photo

Christine you have overcooked the jpeg compression and it is showing jpeg artefacts. The image has a PS jpeg setting of medium 7. I try to avoid going below a setting of 10 to maintain quality. I would expect this image to be in the order of 200KB to 300KB with the amount of detail it has in it.

Thanks,Robski,so does that mean that I should have left the re sizing at 300,and upped the file to a larger size.

Christine

The 72 and 300 settings are related to printing. As Stephen has mentioned this is not related to your problem. Resize the image to 800 pixels as you have been doing. The problem is the way that your are saving the image. Tell us what you are doing at this stage.



I've just seen your comment asking what jpeg artefacts are.



Look at the noise in the bottom image. The 3 images are at different levels of compression.
Going from top to bottom the settings are Maximum, medium and lowest quaility.

http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...2&d=1142529726

Getting away from pixies, which I am sure Stephen and Rob can sort, yes, it is a landscape having the essential 'classic' qualities (derived from painting classes) of interest in the forground, middle ground and background (in this case the sky) and a 'form' to hold it all together. Personally I would have tried to get a more lively colour for the sand as the line between crepuscular and turgid can be a fine one

I am intrigued!!,Daedal,please can you explain to me the meaning of crepuscular and turgid.I could hunt out my dictionary,but I guess this is a photographic term.

Crepuscular is to do with twilight, turbid (:mad: whoops, not turgid) is muddy as in very slow flowing water. I suppose photographers don't ever have time to do crosswords. My family is divided.;)

No need to move from your seat - here's the link to dictionary.com. Quick and easy. :)
http://dictionary.reference.com/

Pol

Thanks,Chris and Polly.
Chris,strange you should make the comment re crosswords.Before I was hooked on photography and spending all my leisure hours hooked up to this infernal machine ,I was a Scrabble addict,and I did a newspaper crossword every day,and read the paper.I now have not read a daily rag for several years,and have not completed a crossword,and I have not played Scrabble against the pc.Sad,sad.
Have any other members found that being involved with photography(and in my case birdwatching as well),that previous hobbies and interests have been put on hold as it were.In fact I used to be an avid reader.My reading is now confined to half a book at bedtime.

Photography has neatly taken the place of work for me! As a self-employed architect I got into photography through the back door needing pictures of buildings to be altered then my own materials library to show clients photo-realistic images of what extensions and alterations would look like. Mixture of 3D modelling in Microstation and montage. That was the interesting bit. Shifting paper piles and fighting rear-guard actions against sloppy and illiterate tradesmen I am happy to lose. My little Nikon was also very good for pictures of the bits of buildings the said tradesmen hoped I wasn't going to see.:eek:

Photography goes very well with walking and outdoor stuff and allows lots of rests as I age. If you are calling your computer an 'infernal machine' you may be able to improve the set-up. On odd spells in other offices I was apalled at the lousy monitors, noisy boxes and lack of software one was expected to work with. Reading and listening to music is what I do instead of watching TV, having never had one or the least desire to have.:)

I don't bother so much with hard copy newspapers these days but I do like to
keep up with some Nationals and Regionals via the web. A lot of online
news sources are ahead of the hard copy anyway so a lot of the newspapers carry 'yesterday's old news'.

As for reading - I like audiobooks more than print these days, more relaxing
and it means I can listen to them at night and contemplate the universe in
the dark - instead of having to turn pages, wear reading glasses and have to
bother about turning the light on/off.

My husband was always a keen photographer and his older brother was a
birder. He'd kept piles and piles of notes and beautiful drawings and, when
he died a few years ago aged just 45, his notes, bird recordings
and books came to us - so we decided to spend more time concentrating on
photography and learning more about birds and nature in general. My husband
had to take early retirement after a Stroke 4 years ago so that's when I
started to get more seriously involved in Photography too - since he bought
me kit to get me started properly and encouraged and helped me learn to use
it.

We rarely watch our ancient TV - prefer to be doing things in the garden,
away down to the Marshes or along the coast watching wildlife or
taking shots. We also spend a fair amount of time sorting out the garden,
which we have organised to attract birds and other wildlife .... all aimed
at photography as well as the wildlife.

I must confess I do still like to play the occasional word game on Yahoo
games though. 'Keyword' is my current favourite. :o :D

Pol

Photography is great as it can be combined with almost anything and actually enhances it.
A good landscape to me is one that makes me want to get out there and enjoy the big outside world. The challenge when taking a landscape is to use all the skill in composition, lens selection, filter selection, viewpoint and timing (as in time of day) etc to evoke what you want the photo to say. That is difficult, frustrating but also what makes it so rewarding when it does all come together. As in all photography its all subjective but again it would be boring if it was otherwise.