What makes a good landscape?

[Noah B]

I've got a question for you all, it's been on my mind a lot here recently. I've seen many photo books and paintings of landscapes, but I always seem to struggle when making one. What really makes a good landscape? The element I think about the most is composition and the horizon line. I'm a huge fan of Joel Sternfeld's Oxbow Archive book and the pictures are gorgeous, but it's mostly all the same composition. When thinking about and making landscapes, what is more important? What makes the landscape good and meaningful? Is it the composition, or is it the allusion of a place that glorifies it?

[Vaughn]

Most important: A good reason to make one.

Other than that: The light.

But also: A connection to the landscape and the light reflecting off of it.

[lbenac]

Most important: A good reason to make one.

Other than that: The light.

But also: A connection to the landscape and the light reflecting off of it.

In total agreement on all the points. The light, the mood,.....

Cheers,

Luc

[Heroique]

The lack of “near interest” can keep a good landscape image from being even better.

Of course, it’s not a rule – not every good landscape image needs or will be improved by “near interest.”

Still, I think a common suggestion from AA, when offering tips in the field, was “Get close!”

[Light Guru]

In total agreement on all the points. The light, the mood,.....

Cheers,

Luc

Amen. That's why you get to the location early wind wait for the light to be just right. If you are lucky you will still be there when its perfect.

[C. D. Keth]

If I can show somebody something about a place that they can't just walk up and see any old day, something really special, then I feel like I've done alright.

[Vaughn]

If I can show somebody something about a place that they can't just walk up and see any old day, something really special, then I feel like I've done alright.

But even more rewarding is to take a landscape that someone sees every day, and make it really special. I rarely do it, but I have been photographing a stretch of creek in the redwoods for 30 years...seeing something that is very familar to me and finding something special.

But someone else's successful attempt:

http://www.tedorland.com/classic/domes.html

[C. D. Keth]

But even more rewarding is to take a landscape that someone sees every day, and make it really special. I rarely do it, but I have been photographing a stretch of creek in the redwoods for 30 years...seeing something that is very familar to me and finding something special.

But someone else's successful attempt:

http://www.tedorland.com/classic/domes.html

I kind of meant for that to be encompassed in the way I worded my reply. Whether it's going somewhere very few people get to go and photographing it or whether it's showing something mundane in an extraordinary way, I like showing things that not everybody may ever get to see (or see "my way")

[John Kasaian]

Hmmmm....I'm not a trained artist or anything like that, but what makes a good landscape photograph for me anyway, is something sensual beyond the visual. Can I hear the water? Smell whats in the air? Feel the rock or cold or heat? Taste the trail dust? A landscape photograph that makes me sense those kinds of things, now thats a good one! IMHO anyway.

[Alan Gales]

Trees and rocks and junk. Sometimes water helps. :p


Lighting, composition, and a point of interest. If you can provide something that first catches your eye and that ultimately leads you to the main point of interest, you are getting good. Originality always helps.

Never spit the composition in half. When you do, it makes the scene boring so never split the composition in half. One of the best shots I ever made, I spit the composition exactly in half. You should always understand the rules so you know when to break the rules. :cool:

Study the landscape photos you like. Ask yourself why you like them. Your answers will tell you plenty.

[lenser]

I don't think I'm qualified to put it into words, but I believe I learned to "see" landscapes when studying art in college and being exposed to the Hudson River School of painters. Later on, I added Thomas Moran to that list. Both had an extreme sense of depth and light so that the subject almost became secondary to the presentation of atmosphere in the image.

Consequently, I pass by tons of "scenes" while I search for that sort of depth and sense of light in something I want to put on film.

[Greg Miller]

Most important: A good reason to make one.

Other than that: The light.

But also: A connection to the landscape and the light reflecting off of it.

Ditto

[Greg Miller]

The lack of “near interest” can keep a good landscape image from being even better.

Of course, it’s not a rule – not every good landscape image needs or will be improved by “near interest.”

Still, I think a common suggestion from AA, when offering tips in the field, was “Get close!”

I don't know that "get close" equates to "near interest". I think it means fill the frame with the subject matter and eliminate objects that do not add to the composition.

I think images with "near interest" have their place, But I also I find that it so formulaic as to be be boring, unless done extremely well. It is a great place for beginners to start because it is simple to understand, but there are so many other compositional techniques that are available. Eliot Porter would be an example of someone who rarely used this technique (although it would accurate to say that he used "get closer").

[john borrelli]

Along with previous posters ideas, one of the things that makes a landscape image memorable to me is some factor that makes that landscape at that moment unusual.

The more everyday the light, weather, objects in the scene the less impactful the image may be. Take a black and white winter landscape and add just the right amount of mist, the mist makes the scene more unusual and may add drama, the mist may block from view elements that could be distracting if the mist were not there, making the landscape very different than the same place without the mist.

I remember an image where the ocean was at high tide, at the same time as the sun was setting, the sunset light was also unusually dramatic, the time of year was winter (which helped produced nice shadows in buildings with Velvia film), no wind to speak of in a place that tends to be windy in winter; each of these variables added interactively to the landscape which made the image of this place more dramatic, more unique.

[Vaughn]

John,

There are many ways to approach the landscape, and what you wrote is valid. In my own approach (and certainly not the 'best', just mine), it is not the unusual that is important, but the every day light that defines Place. Images that rely on atmospheric oddities, super satuation of color, super sharpness and such rarely impress me, unless such qualities add rather than detract from the ordinary.

Here the blowing sand adds, but does not dominate the image:

[Brian C. Miller]

I've got a question for you all, it's been on my mind a lot here recently. I've seen many photo books and paintings of landscapes, but I always seem to struggle when making one.

Take a walk.

Psychogeography: Go and Get Lost to Shoot Something New (http://www.petapixel.com/2012/12/05/psychogeography-go-and-get-lost-to-shoot-something-new/)

Start walking, and keep walking. As you walk, look around. You need to become a flaneur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaneur), walking your environment in order to experience it. Or go find some scenic pathway that you can bicycle, and have a nice bike ride. Experience what is around you.

The real question is not, "what makes a landscape good," but, "what makes your landscape good?" You need to take some time and just look. Categorize it. Good. Bad. Indifferent. Subtle. Provacative.

Your landscape is the land around you that you experience. Go and look at it. Look for your personal connection to it. Think of it in your terms, and the more possessive, the better. "I, me, mine." Feel what is around you. Feel it at dawn, at noon, at dusk. Feel. Think. Observe.

At some point, things will pop out, and you'll say, "Eureka! That's it!" And that will be a good landscape.

[Heroique]

I don’t think I'm qualified to put it into words, but I believe I learned to “see” landscapes when studying art in college and being exposed to the Hudson River School of painters. Later on, I added Thomas Moran to that list...

Claude Lorrain (the French 17th-C painter) has long helped me compose trees in the landscape.

I’m still working on conveying his rhapsodical response to nature.

But he’s just plain better w/ a paintbrush than I am w/ a LF camera!

[andreios]

A good question and very interesting thread! Some great answers so far.
In my very humble and inexperienced POW a good photograph of landscape is born somewhere between your eye and your heart. From the images I have yet made the ones that I like most are those that were not made thanks to my effort, but those that literally hit me in the face after hours of patient walking/sitting and looking not with the intention to "conquer" but to silently appreciate.

[Kodachrome25]

Talent....

Really.

[Bruce Watson]

I've seen many photo books and paintings of landscapes, but I always seem to struggle when making one. What really makes a good landscape?

Practice. The more you make, the better you get at making them. Really. I'm not kidding.

[john borrelli]

Nice image Vaughn. I have seen your images and read your contributions to this forum and they are always appreciated.

One other little thing I might add to my previous post, for what it is worth, perhaps it speaks a little more to expressing oneself through scenic photography.

People who have seen some of my photography, i am a hobbyist only, tend to mention that some of the images they like seem to have a moody quality to them. I think over the years, I may have been using certain kinds of equipment, scenes, compositions, light, etc, that communicate that emotional predisposition to a viewer. Maybe part of a good landscape photograph is when these emotional and technical things all come together in the final image.

[h2oman]

Well, I'd maybe say mood, rather than moody. Perhaps dark and ominous (what is often though of as "moody"), grand and operatic, sunny and optmistic, quiet and serene, melancholy...

But any way you say it, the best images have something special that invokes a feeling.

[Drew Wiley]

If you need it defined, you're on the wrong track to begin with.

[Greg Miller]

Photography is and art of expression and communication. If the viewer doesn't feel something, then what is the point? And if you don't feel something when you trip the shutter, how can you expect the viewer to feel something. So the first step is to get in touch with your own feelings, and be able to recognize why a scene moves you. That will drive the composition and help you identify what to include and exclude form the composition.

[Heroique]

And if you don’t feel something when you trip the shutter, how can you expect the viewer to feel something?

Hmm, I sense some psychological projection here. Me, I grant the viewer a right to their own reaction. What moves me might not move him or her. And what doesn’t move me very much might very well change their life.

[Greg Miller]

Hmm, I sense some psychological projection here. Me, I grant the viewer a right to their own reaction. What moves me might not move him or her. And what doesn’t move me very much might very well change their life.

Psychology, no. Emotion, yes. if the scene does not make me feel something, then i sure as heck am not going to invest my time shooting it. the viewer is still granted permission to feel whatever they feel for the images that I do make.

And I wouldn't even begin to know what migt move someone else, so how could I possibly create a compelling photo in those circumstances.d

[Greg Miller]

Just to be clear, there is absolutely no proection of any kind involved. the image is about me and what i feel about it. i cannot comprehend taking an image that does not move me, and somehow expecting a viewer to be moved, or why i would even invest my time with that.

The viewer is free to feel whatever they will with my image, even if it is nothing. i don't expect every viewer to feel something for every one of my images. But i would never show an image unless it first moved me in some way.

[Greg Miller]

Of course, to have commercial success then ultimately others need to be moved by your work. That's what drives print sales, image licensing, and commercial assignments. but that is different and beyond having successful images at a personal level. and having that personal vision is what allows you to price based on vision, as opposed to pricing based on technical skills (which are a commodity). but we have no control over what others may feel. We need to make images that please us, and hope that others are moved as well. Making images that do not move us will cause our vision to go stale and our images to be empty shells.

[C. D. Keth]

If you need it defined, you're on the wrong track to begin with.

How can you improve your work if you don't know what it is you strive for?

[David_Senesac]

Gee don't a long list of photo and fine art painting books over decades address that subject? Most important is a good subject. All the internal insight, vision, and special lighting elements are usually secondary to the aesthetics of subjects.

So in a place like Kansas you are probably going to have to hope for exceptional skies. Where I live in the state of California there are tons of nice landscape subjects, a fair number of good landscapes subjects, and far fewer exceptional landscape subjects, many of which don't need exceptional weather or skies to be sucessful. Just be there at the right time of year, at the right time of day for reasonable lighting. Many of the better subjects are well known with some being well known icons. And despite the mumbling of many that never venture beyond roadsides, there are a great many superb subjects yet to ever be photographed for those that put in the effort for discovery.

One does not need some special internal insight, vision, or great light because the subjects are already that strong. However if the subject is an icon then one might with average light be able to make a strong image but not be able to make an exceptional image that stands out from myriad other images thousands have taken. For instance standing at Tunnel View in Yosemite Valley. And one will increasingly need vision and better lighting to make less than exceptional images exceptional. In fact sometimes with really exceptional light one can make otherwise ho hum subjects fantastic.

Personally I've always have a low opinion of the aesthetic sense of average mass of outdoor photographers. And in this day of the Internet that shows by looking at the vast numbers of publicly viewable images on web sites, particularly photo web sites and commercial photographer sites. Oh some great images to be sure but also large numbers of mediocre and flawed pics. Such is nothing new as the same was true decades ago when most were 35mm SLR photographers. Today many DSLR photographers once they find a good subject, run around like a chicken with its head chopped off, shooting dozens of digital frames, each bracketing several exposures , lest they manage to miss a winner. How extreme then we large format old timers be that find a subject, and after considerable deliberation wandering back and forth, up and down, side to side, this lens or that, this tripod height or that, find the single frame most worth shooting, and then expose a single sheet, with just the one exposure.

[Greg Miller]

I would say the least important aspect is a good subject. For color landscapes I would put light, color/texture/patterns/form, then subject matter in order of importance (highest to lowest).

A mediocre subject in great light makes a much more compelling image than a great subject in mediocre light Of course a great subject in great light is best, but the key is the great light. Give me any any subject and great light and I can make a compelling image. I don't really care about silly digital photographers who run around snapping hundreds of photos. They aren't good photographers with any camera, digital or LF - bringing them up is just a diversionary tactic. I'm equally unimpressed by LF photographers who hike miles or days to shoot a landscape with boring, flat front lighting or under mid-day light. Don't confuse great light with exceptional weather - sometimes a beautiful diffuse light can be great. There are all kinds of great light conditions for photography. We also have to not get tunnel vision about the grand landscape. There are many great photos that are of intimate landscapes, and also micro landscapes.

[john borrelli]

I also agree with Greg Miller's points.

His previous series of posts describes the emotional aspect of landscape photography I attempted to describe earlier. Being guided by those ideas can help one make quality images of scenes that are not one of the great landscapes. This is a good thing for those of us who do not do photography in those beautiful areas. I think the more "mundane" the location the more important the issues previously described become to the successfulness of the landscape photograph.

[Drew Wiley]

Chris - my work constantly improves because, 1) I'm steadily learning new things technically; 2) I'm a vicious critic of myself; and 3) I don't give a rat's ass about how other people define landscape photography, and don't even care for pigeonhole terms like
that anyway. And I detest postcardy sterotypes. Getting out in the field and shooting is simply in my blood, and that's what counts. If someone has the spark, they can build it into a fire; just takes time.

[C. D. Keth]

2) I'm a vicious critic of myself;

If you're a vicious critic of yourself, you must know what makes a good picture. I'm sure, from reading your posts, that you don't just guess.

[Drew Wiley]

No ... some of my evaluation is highly objective, some gut feeling, and more important, if
I can live with one of my own shots on the wall for more than a few months, I figure it must be a home run. I'm never satisfied with my own work. What the public thinks is a
different story. They seem to like everything, though if I ever get into serious exhibiting
again, I'd rather put things in their face they don't relate to and that force them to think;
which is in amounts to about 80% of my actual work ... but you know galleries etc ... they
hang what they think will sell, and are often wrong. I've done just as good on my more
problematic prints as on my predictable ones, though don't plan on even getting back in
the game until I retire. Got a ton of drymounting and color printing to get caught up with
in the meantime. Did one large installation not too long ago where I mixed the subjects.
The big question mark prints caught on more slowly, but once folks started taking time to
look, slowly got drawn in, looking at the details, the composition, figuring out what is was
that made the thing tick. If I have any legacy in this respect, and a few prints survive the
dumpster, I'd want people to look at things they've overlooked all along and see the
incredible beauty in them. Not any of this "alternate landscape" nonsense with garbage in
the foreground, but the intricacies of what the avg career outdoor photographer would
simply pass over in his financial lust for bagging stereotypes. I'm certainly not against grand scenery - spend plenty of time in it - but it just doesn't intereset me photographically.

[C. D. Keth]

...if
I can live with one of my own shots on the wall for more than a few months, I figure it must be a home run...If I have any legacy in this respect, and a few prints survive the
dumpster, I'd want people to look at things they've overlooked all along and see the
incredible beauty in them.

I think you just answered the original post.