Everything about Landscape Photography

• Take your photos at different times of day: Light and street activity will vary throughout the day, so for our first urban landscape photography idea, we suggest going back to your shooting location multiple times throughout the day. Not only will the light be different (maybe blue hour will complement your shot better than golden hour), the street life may shift through different times of day.
• Research your location: Unless you know your urban landscape like the back of your hand, it might serve to research your location first to form some shots in your head. Fan of a good shortcut? Search the internet for your location, preferably an image-friendly place. Try recreating shots done by others or think about how you’d take them differently.

• Take your photos at different times of year: Sun in the summer appears higher in the sky. In the winter, the sun moves lower. This can create different lighting opportunities for photographers, especially landscape ones, who often rely on light from the sun. Try taking your mountain landscape photography photos in the summer and fall and see what happens to the mood, you may notice it softens in the fall.
• Lean into the weather: As a landscape photographer, you know how different a photo can look with different weather. With how majestic mountains can feel already, weather can have a dramatic effect on your mountain landscape photography. Don’t turn the car around on a snowy, rainy, or foggy day (unless things are getting dangerous!). These photos could be your best ones.

• Don’t forget about the local wildlife: Sometimes we forget how much goes on in our own backyard. Whether there’s activity in your immediate surroundings, or you journey to a local park, natural area, even college campus or industrial park, you may catch a glimpse of creatures that make interesting subjects for your landscape photography. Don’t discount them!
• Capture local flora: Think about the predominant or unique plant life that characterizes your local area. Find equally unique ways to capture this plant life. For instance, it may have distinctive colors and shapes that you want to convey, or there are interesting ways your urban environment converges around them.

• Capture the grainy detail: Your beach is likely less visually busy than other landscapes, so focus on the finer things, consider incorporating the texture of sand and rocks into your foreground, or the imprints in the sand left by people, sea, and wildlife.
• Take advantage of being by water: Your beach’s water can be your best friend if you’d like it to be. Play with the reflections you can see from the water, how the light glistens on it, capture movement from the tide, how beachgoers interact with the water, or characteristics from the shoreline.

• Think outside the box: Panoramic landscape photography can be more than (or sometimes majestically just!) a mountain range. Think beyond the traditional. Try capturing a panoramic urban landscape, a vertical shot, or try stitching together before and afters of the same scene, such as day to night, dramatic weather changes, or winter to summer.
• Go 360: Transform your panoramic landscape photo into a 360-degree one. This topsy-turvy way of looking at your panorama turns your image spherical, resembling a “tiny planet.” This view in some cases replicates the feeling of being in the scene, and can really show off things such as tall structures.

• Practice seeing in black and white: Good black and white photos result in the photographer looking at a scene differently. To level up your B&W landscape photography game, try to see the world in black and white. Your digital camera may have a monochrome mode, where you can preview your photo and see your world in black and white, helping you gauge good scenes for B&W landscape photos in the future.
• Go abstract: B&W removes an element of information for your viewer–color. Why not double down and further simplify your image by finding abstraction in your landscape? Follow a natural line, repeating pattern, texture, or interesting shape and see how much more dramatic it can appear in black and white.

• Go for black and white: Double down on the hauntingly beautiful effects of infrared landscape photography by going black and white. You may notice effects that surprise you, lean into it and gather further ideas and inspiration, for instance, light significantly amplifies in infrared.
• Experiment with tone and contrast: Get a handle on the change in tones that occur with infrared landscape photography by having fun with the lush color. Your style and way of seeing may need to change to take into account all the changes in tone and contrast, so consider adding an IR filter to your gear.

• Make stillness your focus: Rather than creating a long exposure of a singular subject matter within your frame, consider a long exposure on the entire scene with the exception of a focused singular subject at a stand-still. Try this with a person, or even wildlife (if they don’t move! For your long exposure landscape photography.
• Harness the light: Light can really come alive through long exposure landscape photography, more specifically, the movement of it. From traffic and car lights, to light from the night sky. Consider even attaching a light to a moving object yourself, such as giving a sparkler to a friend on a bike. But more on that later.

• Find the light: Light is intrinsic to photography, but being able to harness it for a foggy landscape photo makes it really special. Seeing these pockets or subtle rays of light through the fog can feel magical, so be sure if there is sun out during the fog to hunt for it. Hint: make sure the light comes from behind the fog.
• Go high: Fog can create natural screens and hide elements of our environment, which is maybe why it’s so mysterious. An interesting shot to get could be demonstrating how objects can unveil themselves from the fog, such as the tops of buildings or mountain peaks.

• Find beauty in the mundane: It seems like anything can feel magical when it’s golden hour. See how far you can extend this thinking. Is there a landscape you might consider photographing during golden hour you wouldn’t normally? An open field, even industrial complex, or deserted street? Try broadening your scope when you’re taking golden hour landscape photography.
• Find the shadows: For the majority of our 24 hour day, we’re usually bathed in direct or harsh sun or shrouded under the cover of darkness. Golden hour landscape photography helps convey a different mood and emotional intent with the sun’s low angle, so find those long shadows that can add a different compositional element, even texture.

• Add variety with your light source: Once you’ve assembled your gear and got a handle on light painting landscape photography, it’s time to have fun! Experiment with your light source, go analog with candles or sparklers (just be extremely careful, especially in a natural environment), or choose from a plethora of LED lights.
• Experiment with different shapes: Like choosing a light source, experimenting with different shapes your light will take can be equally thrilling. Explore how your shapes might mimic or interact with the landscape or maybe you’d like to spell out a word or short phrase to convey your message.

• Hone your post-processing skills: Post-processing is essential in high key landscape photography. Your editing can further convey the mood you’re going for. It’s where you can hone in on the tonal values in your photo, and adjust your photo’s brightness and exposure. Make sure to carve yourself out a nice amount of time for this step to really push your work.
• Pump up those winter whites: High key landscape photography allows you to break with some of the traditional landscape photography conventions to take photos you might not normally. This might open up shots you wouldn’t have considered before, like the near-white out you can sometimes get in the wintertime.

• Try black and white: Likely the mood you’re going for in your low key landscape photography is on the brooding, even ominous side. Why not double down and take it black and white too to really hone in on your moody vibe? Keep in mind you’re still looking for some contrast and composition.
• Become a night owl: Similar to black and white, nighttime may help convey the mood you’re trying to go for with low key landscape photography. Minimizing the amount of light you’re contending with by shooting at night may help you spot shots better too, as nighttime is naturally low key.

Alfred Steiglitz isn’t just an important figure in landscape photography, but in photography as a whole. He played a significant role in elevating the new medium of photography to the level of art in the public’s perception.

His work dates from the 1890s through to the 1930s, and many of his images constitute some of the earliest explorations of photography as an art form. He pioneered a style called Pictorial photography, in which the photographer aimed not just to capture a scene as it is but to evoke an atmosphere by capturing elements like mist, fog, or rain.

While he produced many famous and influential images, some of his most famous landscapes are what would today be considered urban landscapes, capturing street scenes in New York and various European cities.

No list of landscape photography examples would be complete without Ansel Adams. Widely considered to be the best and most influential landscape photographer of the 20th century, his famous black and white landscapes are striking even today, a century after many of them were produced. Most of his work dates from the 1920s to the 1950s, and his most celebrated images are of various American national parks, like Yosemite.

His work represents a departure from the Pictorialist style of his predecessors. While he initially trained in this style, he developed his own distinct approach which is sharp, crisp, and bold. He was also an environmentalist, and through his images shares a message of the need to protect America’s vast national parks.

Edward Steichen was a profoundly influential Luxembourg-born, American-raised photographer who lived from 1879 to 1973. His work spans the fields of fashion photography, documentary photography, and landscape photography, and he served as a major influence on iconic photographers such as Alfred Steiglitz.

His landscapes can primarily be identified as belonging to the Pictorialist school, but he succeeded in imbuing his work with a quality that is immediately recognizable. Many of his landscapes have a haunting, moody quality that sets him apart from other photographers of his time.

Borrowing from the Tonalist movement in painting, he colorized his photographs in a Tonalist style, creating a synthesis of photography and painting that resulted in his distinctive impressionistic style.

Another great American photographer working in landscapes as well as other subjects, Weston also straddled the 19th and 20th centuries. His work dates primarily from 1902 to 1946. Looking through Weston’s images, you can’t help but be struck by the poetry he was able to convey when capturing something as simple as a cabbage leaf or a sea shell, which is every bit as interesting to look at as his landscapes of American sand dunes.

His style is characterized by stark, sharp contrast, and beautiful undulating lines, all rendered gorgeously in prints that are as impressive today as they must have been when they were first printed.

Imogen Cunningham was a pioneering American photographer who lived from 1883 to 1976. She got her start as a student by capturing plant images for her university’s botany department to earn money, and these botanical images remain intensely fascinating and beautiful today.

Her approach to landscape photography was unrestrained by convention: it’s evident that she took as much joy and interest in capturing urban landscapes as she did in shooting more natural, uninhabited parts of the country. These urban landscapes, largely taken around Los Angeles and Oakland, capture an America in transition.

Her career culminated in becoming a photographer for Vanity Fair, where she photographed many famous subjects of the time and developed an interest in capturing images of hands. Whether she was shooting botanical subject matter, landscapes, screen stars, or the hands of her subject, her work is characterized by a distinctive and beautiful interplay of light and shadow.

Swiss photographer Robert Frank (1924-2019) is best known for his massively influential 1958 book, The Americans. 

The result of a trip across America that a young Frank took with the proceeds from a Guggenheim fellowship, the book includes a mix of landscape, documentary, and portrait photography that tells a story of the country through the eyes of an outsider. For this, he has been compared to a 20th century de Tocqueville. However, many critics didn’t respond warmly to the book at the time that it was published since its depictions of racial strife were seen as an insult to America’s character.

A testament to the storytelling power of landscape photography, The Americans remains an iconic book to this day. 

Sally Mann is an American photographer who is still active today, although her most influential landscape photography was taken in the 1990s.

Her black and white photographs of landscapes from the American South are highly celebrated. And the most distinct among them are reminiscent of the work of early landscape photographers like Steiglitz. That’s because despite working in the later half of the 20th century, Mann often experimented with traditional photographic techniques dating back to the 19th century.

These largely lost techniques give her work a ghostly quality and have the effect of collapsing time by making our contemporary world look more like a world that has long since passed.

Stephen Shore is a New York-born American photographer known for his books Uncommon Places and American Surfaces, published in 1982 and 1999 respectively. He is also well known for his images of Andy Warhol’s creative milieux, captured during a time when a young Shore was frequently visiting Warhol’s studio.

Like the many great American landscape photographers who came before him, Shore’s masterful landscapes were captured while road tripping across America and Canada.

Through his use of color photography, he captures the tones of small-town America, from the faded colors of abandoned towns to the lively hues of urban life.

Born in 1939, American photographer William Eggleston is known for his colorful images of otherwise mundane Americana, which through his lens become interesting, complex, and sometimes dark.

His landscapes can be characterized as urban landscapes or social landscapes in the style of Lee Friedlander. This type of landscape photography is a testament to the fact that you don’t need access to remote, vast landscapes to be a masterful landscape photographer: you can capture the landscapes around you, whether they’re urban or rural, developed or natural.

• Keep your ISO low. Why? Because the lower you keep that ISO, the less chance there is of having noise in your image. With sunset photography, you want to achieve a clear, clean image. In general, we suggest trying to keep the ISO between 100 or 200. 
• Aim for a high f-stop. In particular, somewhere between f/11 and f/16 should be sufficient. Doing so will give you the largest depth of field possible. You also might find that doing so gives you a unique starburst effect in your composition. 
• Try using a tripod. Because you will likely want to capture the details of the sunset, the stability of a tripod can be invaluable. It will prevent any shake in your image, while also giving you the opportunity to play with long exposures. These long exposures can be particularly visually appealing if you have water in your image.

• Utilize the foreground. While the mountain may be the star of your image, there’s no rule that says you can’t include other elements. In fact, we highly encourage you to do so to help make your image more visually interesting. Solely focusing on mountains and not considering other elements of the image can be limiting. Foreground elements might include wildflowers, streams, and even wildlife. 
• Use other elements to help indicate scale. One of the most impressive features of mountains is their size. In photography, this doesn’t always translate, but if we incorporate other elements into the composition, we can help provide scale (i.e. how large the mountain is relative to this other subject). In particular, adding a carefully-placed person in your landscape can be impactful. 
• Be aware of lighting differences. If you’re not accustomed to shooting mountain landscapes, keep in mind that the natural rise and fall of the sun will be on a different schedule than your typical landscapes. This is because of the height of the mountains. For instance, if you want to get golden hour lighting, you’ll need to plan to shoot several hours before the typical golden hour, because once the sun goes behind the mountains, your lighting source will be significantly reduced.

• Shoot early in the day. One of the most popular times of day for forest landscape photography, early morning light creates a soft glow. In addition, when the sun is low in the sky, the light streams through the trees, which can make for great photos. Early morning mist can also be a bonus. Alternatively, you can shoot during golden hour (i.e. an hour before sunset) for a similar effect. 
• Try adding a polarizing filter to your lens. This will help reduce any glare from water or other reflective surfaces. In addition, even if you don’t have any reflective surfaces in the image, it’s still worth trying. This type of filter can help make colors look more vibrant, which can be particularly appealing if you’re shooting in the fall when fall foliage is at its peak. 
• Don’t forget your tripod. While it is possible to shoot forest photography without a tripod, having one could save you. The low lighting that is inevitable in a heavily wooded forest could make shooting difficult, especially if you want to avoid any motion blur or noise in your image.

• Seek out clouds. We know that having “not a cloud in the sky” might sound ideal, but the reality is, when it comes to landscape photography, having some clouds in your composition will make the image more interesting. 
• Don’t forget about the foreground. While the sky and water are important in your image, your foreground is equally important. The sky should act as a complement to your image and not the focus. For example, rocks tend to be a good foreground focus for beach photography. 
• Place your camera down low. You want your camera to be at eye-level with the subject, but because landscapes don’t generally have specific subjects, you should aim to bring your camera to the level of your main focus. For instance, if you’re shooting rocks in the foreground, bring your camera to the level of those rocks. Doing so ensures that the foreground is emphasized, as well as ensuring that we have a good portion of water and sky in the composition.

• Seek out storms. While you’re probably not going to want to shoot in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm, seeking out storms with ocean photography can make for great lighting situations. In particular, storm clouds can create a lot of visual interest. Even just after a storm can be a great opportunity for ocean landscape photography. 
• Be aware of your exposure. While you might think that all that sunshine will put you at risk of overexposing your image, there’s actually an even greater likelihood that you underexposure your image. This is because your camera’s meter is not smart enough to understand that you’re by the ocean. We recommend exposing your image a stop brighter than your camera thinks it needs to be. 
• Try creating silhouettes. A great way to play with light at the ocean is to create silhouettes. Your goal should be to properly expose the water and sky, but then to let the foreground and subjects in your scene go dark. We recommend trying this trick when you have easily recognizable silhouettes in your image (i.e. sailboats, birds, people, palm trees, etc.).

• Use a longer shutter speed. Because you are shooting at night, you will need to make use of a longer shutter speed that allows more light into your camera. We recommend anywhere between 30 seconds and 60 seconds. In addition, because the shutter is open for so long, you will need a tripod to reduce noise and motion blur. 
• Make sure you’re shooting in raw. While shooting in raw is recommended for most images, it is particularly important with night city landscapes. Shooting at night means there is a good deal of range between pure black and pure white in your image. When you shoot in raw, you capture more range, which can be manipulated in post-production using a program like Lightroom. 
• Increase shadows and pull down highlights. As a professional photographer, post-production is key for creating a visually appealing image. This is particularly true with night city landscapes where the colors won’t be as vivid without editing. By simply increasing shadows and pulling down highlights, you’ll create a more vivid image.

• Seek out cool subjects. One of the best parts about rural landscape photography is the amount of creativity you can bring to your image. Rather than just shooting vast landscapes, look for landscapes that have unique elements you can add to the image. For instance, old barns, towers, churches, farm machinery, old buildings, horses, etc. 
• Consider the sky/the weather. The weather has the potential to completely shift the mood of your image. For instance, if you want a moody feel, shoot in the rain, when it’s cloudy, or even better, when there is fog. If you want something more bright, vibrant, and playful, this dark weather won’t be appropriate. 
• Play with composition. Before you just go ahead and start shooting, consider the elements of your photo. Do you have the main focus? Can you easily identify what is most interesting about the scene? If you follow the rule of thirds, you’ll want to put that main subject about a third of a way into the shot. Play around with this to avoid a composition that is boring with no real point of interest.

Chances are if you have ever picked up a camera in your life you’ve wanted to capture the magical quality of a sunset. How could you not want to pack up the delightful and mysterious beauty of a sunset? There’s something so inexplicable about their beauty, we all know the feeling but it’s difficult to put it into words. In any case, here are the top hashtags for sunsets in 2022.

#sunset #sunsetphotography #sunsetlover #sunsetgram #sunsets #sunsetoftheday #sunsetpics #sunsetsofinstagram #sunsethunter #sunsetbeach #landscapesunset #sunsets #sunsetlovers #sunsetsky #landscapesky #sunsetmadness #bestsunset #skylovers #sundown #sunsetvision #cloudlovers

If you’re one of those granola-eating, camp-stove-coffee-drinking types that like to wake up at 4 in the morning to climb on top of a mountain to start your day, chances are you’re too busy taking in some grand vista to check up on what the latest Instagram hashtags are trending. Hopefully, it hasn’t been so long since you last saw civilization that you forgot where you are. Either way, we got you covered. 

#hikersofinstagram #hikemoreworkless #hikemoreworryless #forest #hikerlife #forestbathing #hike #hiking #trail #freshair #thegreatoutdoors

If you are lucky enough to find yourself on a beach (or better yet live near one) chances are you’ll be tempted to see what kind of moments you can capture behind the lens. There’s something enticing about the great expanse of ocean waters. If you come at the right time of day, maybe you could catch a sunrise or sunset and double up on useful hashtags. 

#beach #beachbum #sunsetbythebeach #beachlover #beachwaves #beachtime #beaches #beachday #beachsunset #beachplease #lifesabeach #beachvibes #beachlandscape #beachphotography #beachlife #waves #beachview #ocean #beaches #beachsunset

Not everyone is going to have a mountain range in their backyard to keep them busy (and in shape) but if you happen to find yourself standing among the clouds in a mountain range these landscape photography hashtags will come in handy. The mountains you find yourself on might be snow-capped, heavily forested, a mix of shale and quartz, or any combination of these things. Here are the top landscape photography hashtags for mountains.

#mountainsarecalling #mountains #lovemountains #snowymountains #climbingmountains #ilovemountains #mountainscapes #mountainlandscape #mountain #mountainlovers #mountainphotography #mountainview #hiking #mountainscape #mountainlife #trekking #mountainadventures #hikingadventures #mountainsview #mountainlake #mountaintop #mountainlove #climbing #mountainside #mountaineering #mountainstories

If you plan on taking a vacation to a tropical island any time soon you will probably be bringing your camera. When you do, you’ll want to know what hashtags to use so you can maximize your reach on social media. If you go all that way to take the photo, you probably want the hashtags to do the work showing your work to others!

#island #islandhopping #islandvibes #loveisland #islandliving #islander #onehappyisland #islandsofadventure #islandlandscape #islandsunset #islandsky #islandadventure #islandphotography

Nature is a broad term that encompasses everything to do with the great outdoors. Sometimes it can be difficult to categorize your work, so it can be helpful to keep it relatively vague if you’re completely stumped. Here are the best landscape photography hashtags to use while you’re out in nature. 

#naturephotography #nature #naturelovers #naturephotographer #natureshots #naturegram #naturephotos #natureseeker #naturelandscape #naturelovers #landscapephotographer #travelphotography #naturelover #photographynature #photooftheday #landscapelovers #photographernature

Architecture landscape photography is an interesting but fickle medium. There is no feedback from your subject like there is when you’re dealing with people. Because of this, you will have to diligently and sometimes painstakingly review your work until you get a satisfactory result. But, thanks to us you won’t have to do the same searching for Hashtags. Here are some of the best Architecture hashtags to use in 2022.

#architecturephoto #architecture #landscapearchitecture #instaarchitecture #architectures #amazingarchitecture #contemporaryarchitecture #architecturelandscape #architecture #architecturephotography #architecturelovers

Having a friend along for a trip while you’re taking photos is usually a lot more enjoyable than going it alone. Plus, you can take photos with them in the frame to add a little bit of foreground interest, and to give a sense of scale to your audience. You might even meet someone while you’re out and about snapping photos. People tend to take interest when you’re walking around with a bunch of camera gear.

#followme #greettheoutdoors #outdoorshooting #outdoorsy #lovetheoutdoors

Black and white photography isn’t for everyone. But, if you fancy yourself to be a photographer like Ansel Adams, this is your bread and butter. Black and white photography can add a lot of drama to a seemingly plain mountain range, or even a forest at dusk. Here are some of the best black and white landscape photography hashtags you can use to broaden your reach. 

#blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotos #blackandwhitepic #blackandwhitephotograph #blackandwhitelovers #bnw #blackandwhitelandscape #blackandwhitephotography #monochrome #bw #bnwphotography #blackandwhitephoto #bnwlandscape #monochromephotography #blackandwhitelandscapes #blackandwhitenature #blackandwhitelandscapephotography #bnwmood #bnwphoto

Autumn is a very magical time of the year. With all the leaves changing colors, you can take a photo of the same view at a different time or day of the week and get completely different results. Depending on where you live, autumn may pass you by fairly quickly. So, make sure you plan out your autumnal photoshoots well in advance, probably even well into the summertime, for the best results. 

#autumn #autumnal #autumniscoming #autumndays #instaautumn #autumnlandscape #autumnvibes #autumnleaves #autumncolors #autumnphotography #autumnmood #autumncolors #fall #autumntrees #autumnaesthetic #autumnlover #autumnday #autumntime #autumnlove #autumnishere #fallcolors #autumnweather #autumnalvibes #autumnsky #autumnphotoshoot

Winter isn’t everyone’s favorite season, and if it’s too cold out, your camera gear might not even function properly. Yikes! However, there are some truly unique opportunities that just can’t be replicated any other way aside from bundling yourself up and braving the cold weather. The way the light refracts off the snow can be endlessly interesting, even though hashtags might not be. Here are some hashtags you can use to focus on your creativity. 

#winter #winterbreak #wintervibes #firstsnow #snowball #letitsnow #snowfall #snow #winterlandscape #winterwonderland #wintertime #winterishere #winteriscoming #winterlove #winterfun #winterday #cold #winterphotography #winterdays #ice #winterwalk #lovewinter #coldweather #frost #winternight #winterclothes #winterly #winterpic

Spring is many people’s favorite season, it reminds them of past summers yet to come, maybe a former romance, or even something as simple as the latest bloom of flowers. Whatever the case may be, we have a selection of hashtags for you to use listed below. But, you’ll need to plan for it and act quickly if you want to catch the first bloom!

#spring #springsummer #springhassprung #springvibes #springday #springbreak #springlandscape #spring