Beautiful photographs of landscapes. Adventures of a traveler. Equipment is not that important
The famous American photographer Ansel Adams, who became famous throughout the world for his black-and-white landscape photographs, once said: “Landscape photography is the main test for a photographer and often his main disappointment.” And this is, perhaps, the honest truth. How often do we, noticing a beautiful view, think that all we have to do is simply press the shutter button, capture what we see - and the result will be a masterpiece. However, a masterpiece most often does not work out, because for a landscape photographer it is not enough to just be a mirror for nature, he must learn to express himself through the landscape.
Photographer Declan O'Neill shared his 10 secrets for creating expressive landscape photographs.
1. What can you say about the landscape through photography?
It takes time to read and understand the landscape. You just have to stand and watch how the light changes contours and shapes. As the sun moves, forests and rivers are illuminated every minute in a completely new way and sometimes completely transformed. Light creates its own mood and emotion in the landscape. The landscape can be compared to a huge canvas on which light paints its own complex and amazing picture.
In this case, photography is about capturing how light transforms a landscape. Therefore, the decision about what to photograph and what composition to build should be dictated by the question: “Does this photograph say something about the light and landscape?” This simple question helps you reject many unsuccessful and empty compositions and choose the one that is perfect.
2. Learn to get up early!
If I have a choice between sunrise and sunset, I always choose sunrise. I have nothing against sunset photos, but I think it's hard to add something new and original to the thousands of sunset photos I've already seen. Dawn light, on the contrary, always brings surprises! It is very difficult to predict exactly what you will get while you stand and wait in the pre-dawn darkness.
It's a bit like photographing wild animals - because you're equally likely to get the shot you've always wanted or get nothing. Dawn light can be completely different - from smoky pink to warm yellow.
Keep an eye on the weather forecasts - because if you're lucky enough to live in areas with cold nights and clear skies, you can sometimes catch some amazing cloud and haze effects that are sure to clear by the time the rest of the world wakes up.
3. Imperfection is good.
One of the main challenges of landscape photography is that you have to deal with huge dynamic range. At the same time, it becomes very difficult to control the balance of lighting in the frame. ND filters sometimes help, but are often inconvenient or inappropriate for a particular place and time. Sometimes you have to give up shooting altogether because the dynamic range is too large.
You can, of course, use HDR technologies, but they most often give themselves away and can violate the integrity and honesty of the photo. Many photographs can be light balanced when processed on a computer. However, sometimes a photograph benefits from the inability to capture the full dynamic range. Most likely, such a photograph will not be accepted for participation in various competitions, and there will most likely be areas in it from which it will be impossible to isolate at least some details. Perhaps technically the photograph will turn out to be very poor, but a black silhouette against a light background very often attracts attention in an unimaginable way and seems to invite you to take a closer look at yourself. Sometimes you have to give up the opportunity to capture a perfectly lit photo in order to draw attention to the potential of the subject itself.
4. Look back!
It’s so easy to see the winning shot and forget to look around. When watching a sunset or sunrise, people usually point their lenses towards the sun and again take thousands of pictures, millions of which they have already seen from their friends or on the Internet. However, often it is enough just to look back to see something completely new and missed by everyone! After all, instead of photographing the rising or setting sun, you can capture what it illuminates at that moment.
The obvious shot is not always the best one. Learn to look more carefully.
5. Use software for planning.
There are many programs that can help you with outdoor photography. Perhaps one of the most useful of them is The Photographers Ephemeris. In short, it lets you choose any place on the planet - and shows you where the sun will be on any given day, at any given time. exact time. This way, you can choose the best day and time to shoot in a certain location and choose a specific shooting location with the best lighting. If you're serious about landscape photography, this is a must-have tool.
Another tool that can help you a lot is a terrain map. A good map will help you predict what the landscape will look like and give you some idea of what's in your field of vision. Knowing how to understand these detailed topographic maps will help you save a lot of time and not have to drive around looking for that perfect shooting spot!
6. Equipment is not that important.
The best equipment doesn't guarantee you the best photos, any more than the best pen will automatically allow you to write that great novel you've always dreamed of. Equipment is just a device that allows you to convey to others what is in your head. If you have your own opinion and if you have something to say (see point 1) - then you can use anything, from a smartphone to Nikon D800.
Remember that you are the one who builds the composition of your future photo, and the camera just captures it. Large quantity megapixels or a faster lens will never help you make your composition more expressive and full.
7. Don't try to "paint" the landscape with your camera.
On the Internet, photographs that have undergone extreme post-processing or were created using ND filters that make water look like smooth silk have become increasingly fashionable lately. Why not let nature express itself naturally? Believe me, she can do this perfectly without using any filters. The same goes for post-processing. If used in moderation, it helps to emphasize the natural beauty of nature, if overdone, we are already beginning to change the landscape and paint it completely different from what it really was.
Real photographs always leave their mark on our consciousness and subconscious. This is why highly photoshopped, idealized images of landscapes often leave us indifferent. They tell a fictional story, not real story. We immediately notice the falseness of the orange sky and the oversaturated color of the grass. Photographs can be metaphors, but they must be metaphors that appear in the viewer's head, not in the photographer's imagination.
If you still want to convey your vision of what the landscape looked like, perhaps you should try your hand at drawing?
8. Bad weather- it's good weather.
Clouds and rain are not the most inspiring weather conditions, but they bring with them opportunities far more interesting than any cloudless day. It takes patience and optimism to walk around with a camera in the rain all day, but more often than not, you will be rewarded. If you look around carefully, you will certainly find amazing shots created by clouds and rain!
We continue to introduce our readers to the best contemporary photographers. Today we’ll talk about the landscape genre. So, read our review, share it with your friends and get inspired by admiring the works of masters of the landscape genre!
Dmitry Arkhipov
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A native Muscovite, Dmitry Arkhipov has been interested in photography since childhood. A physicist by training, Dmitry served in the army, worked at the Space Research Institute under the Buran program, created his own well-known IT company, while simultaneously continuing to improve in the field of landscape photography.
The results of his travels to 108 countries around the world were five personal exhibitions, where Dmitry’s works were seen by more than a million people. Now Dmitry Arkhipov is a titled photographer, a member of the Russian Union of Photographers, winner and laureate of national and international photo competitions.
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Denis Budkov is a native of Kamchatka, since 1995 he has been traveling and photographing his motherland. The love for nature and the desire to show all its beauty became the motivation for studying the basics of photography and improving skills in practice. Denis's main passion is volcanoes, with which the nature of Kamchatka is so rich. The volcanic eruptions and peaceful Kamchatka landscapes he captured have already received awards from the prestigious photo competitions Best of Russia 2009, 2013, Wildlife of Russia 2011, 2013, Golden Turtle, Wildlife Photographer of the Year - 2011. Denis says that photography for him is a way of life, which is completely satisfactory. The main thing is to wait for the right moment to take that very shot.
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Mikhail Vershinin became interested in photography as a child; he had to give up visiting the photo studio in favor of another hobby - rock climbing and mountaineering, but even on sports routes he took his camera with him. Craving for travel wild places and passion for filming eventually led Mikhail Vershinin to landscape photography. He explains his choice of this particular genre not only by a craving for nature, but also by a special mood, the ability to convey feelings and emotions with the help of a captured moment. Mikhail Vershinin's works have repeatedly become finalists and winners of Russian and international competitions, including National Geographic Russia - 2004 and FIAP Trierenberg Super Circuit - 2011 in the Night Image category.
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Oleg Gaponyuk, a MIPT graduate, lives and works in Moscow and has an unusual hobby - panoramic photography. For the sake of a good photo, he can easily go to the other end of the earth, while doing alpine skiing, windsurfing and diving. Despite the fact that his sporting hobbies are associated with mountains, seas and oceans, in the field of photography Oleg became interested in creating spherical panoramas in the air. He is actively involved in the AirPano.ru project, within the framework of which more than 1,500 bird's-eye panoramas have already been taken in the most interesting cities and corners of the world. In terms of the geography of filming, the number of aerial panoramas and the artistic value of the material, this project is one of the world leaders in this type of panoramic photography.
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MIPT graduate Daniil Korzhonov prefers to call himself an amateur photographer, because he simply does what he likes. Photography allowed him to combine his passion for painting and his love of travel. As a landscape photographer, he visits the most beautiful places on the globe and “paints” what he sees on film. Combining photography with travel allows Daniil to lead an active lifestyle and express his thoughts and feelings with the help of beautiful and original shots taken both in wild places and on city streets. He advises all novice photographers to shoot as much and as often as possible in order to better understand the beauty of the world around them.
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Vladimir Medvedev - founder of the Wildlife Photographers Club, tireless traveler, professional photographer, winner of international competitions including the 2012 BBC Wildlife Photography Competition Eric Hosking Portfolio Award. Collaboration with wildlife reserves around the world allows Vladimir to take unique photographs of the pristine world and its inhabitants. According to Vladimir Medvedev, photography is both an art, a means of understanding the world, and a means of influencing the world. It's easy to start taking photographs - you just need to buy a camera and learn from the best.
Yuri Pustovoy
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Yuri Pustovoy is a graduate of VGIK, a cinematographer at the Odessa Film Studio with ten years of experience and an honored travel photographer. His works have received recognition from the jury and visitors of international exhibitions and photo competitions, including the Yuri Gold Medal. International Federation Photo arts FIAP Global Arctic Awards 2012. Yuri Pustovoy is not only a traveler and photographer, but also an organizer of photo tours for real amateur photographers and beginners. Yuri and his team's cameras capture landscapes from different parts of the planet. During the tour, Yuri shares his photographic experience, helps during filming with advice and action, and teaches techniques for processing photographs in graphic editors.
Sergey Semenov
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Sergey Semyonov became interested in photography in 2003, when he came into his hands for the first time in his life digital camera. Since then, he not only devoted all his free time to this hobby, but also turned photography into a profession, exchanging his career as an economist for the fate of a travel photographer. In pursuit of the most beautiful views Sergey's lands visit the national parks of North America, the mountains of Patagonia, the icy lagoons of Iceland, the Brazilian jungle and hot deserts. He takes pictures of his favorite landscapes from a bird's eye view and is an active participant in the AirPano.ru project. In his first panorama, Sergei showed the Kremlin as birds see it.
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The Belarusian photographer is known as a master of the landscape genre. Like many of his colleagues, he believes that beauty is present everywhere, and the skill of a photographer lies in showing it to the viewer. He is characterized by being demanding of himself and the quality of his work. You will be surprised, but sometimes Vlad comes to the same place several times to achieve the right lighting and take a great shot. Also, Vlad has been reading our magazine for a long time and regularly shares his photographs with our entire audience.
Alexey Suloev
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Alexey Suloev received his first camera at the age of seven and quickly got used to photographing everything around him, especially since his passion for tourism allowed him to find himself in the most unusual, unexplored places of the Caucasus, Pamir and Tien Shan. Gradually, tourist trips turned into real photo trips. In pursuit of unusual shots, Alexey has already visited more than a hundred countries; the geography of his trips includes the most inaccessible and untouched places on our planet, from the North to the South Pole. Alexey takes pictures because he cannot describe in words the beauty and diversity of the earth. He generously shares everything he sees with his viewers, so that every person can find creative inspiration in the inexhaustibility of nature.
- genre visual arts, the main task of which is to display the surrounding nature both in its original form and in one modified by man to one degree or another. Since photography is one of the fine arts, landscape photography fully corresponds to this definition. The main visual center of landscape photography is nature in all its manifestations.
Of course, landscape as a genre appeared long before the invention of photography - in painting. And honed over centuries artistic media landscape images formed a number of necessary conditions required for this genre of photography. Linear perspective , tonal (aerial) perspective, optical perspective,frame composition , light space And color - these are the main characteristics of landscape photography, capable of not only very accurately conveying the state of the surrounding nature at a certain point in time, but also highlighting semantic center image without the use of additional manipulation techniques. And despite the fact that in landscape photography the presence of people or animals in the frame is allowed, they are clearly assigned the role of staffage - an element of the landscape that exists to enliven the image and plays a secondary role in this image.
At its core, landscape photography is documentary photography about nature. According to the type of space depicted, landscape photography can be terrestrial, water, astronomical and meteorological. Landscape photography depicts landscape, topography and vegetation and is both rural and urban.
Water landscape (seascape, marina) is an image of the water (sea) element.
Astronomical landscape photography depicts the heavens (stars, constellations, Sun, Moon),
and meteorological - weather and precipitation (fog, rain, clouds, tornado, etc.).
According to the way of depicting space, landscape photography can be chamber and panoramic. Camera photography in this case does not imply a narrow circle of viewers, but expresses purely technical characteristics- a small, narrow viewing angle of the depicted space.
Panoramic landscape photography is the absolute opposite - it is a photograph, the viewing angle of which can often exceed 180 degrees.
According to the degree of perception by the viewer, a landscape can, by analogy with music, be minor or major. Tragic or solemn. Sad or cheerful. In solving this problem, the photographer comes to the aid of color theory, namely one of its sections - psychology of color. Knowing what colors and how they affect the viewer’s consciousness, the photographer can adjust color balance of the composition landscape to achieve a specific result. At the same time, in a landscape, cold shades cannot always create an atmosphere of hostility, and warm shades can create an atmosphere of friendliness. Small colored vegetation against the backdrop of black thunderclouds looks defenseless, and the picture as a whole evokes a feeling of anxiety, while cold Elbrus evokes awe and delight with its grandeur.
Of course, several of the listed natural spaces and states can easily overlap in one picture at the same time, but in this case it is important for the landscape photographer to decide what exactly in this picture is semantic center, and select this center using visual arts — prospects, compositions, Sveta, colors.
If there is no such center, then landscape photography is purely aesthetic, narrative-specific in nature and is used for decorative, scientific or journalistic purposes. Landscape photography belongs precisely to the category of aesthetic perception - plein air- a true depiction of nature’s colorful richness of color changes in natural conditions under the influence of sunlight and atmosphere.
If there is still a semantic center in landscape photography, then such a landscape will be charged with emotional-dramatic (or epic) energy and will acquire the features artistic landscape photography.
Along with mandatory conditions creating landscape photography, there are a number of conditions that are specific in nature - dynamism , angle , detail. Considering that photography is a static and silent form of fine art, it is in landscape photography that it is most difficult to convey certain atmospheric phenomena with great accuracy. How to show strong wind in a photo of a desert? How can mountain giants be depicted more majestic? It is in these cases that a landscape photographer is saved by knowledge about the dynamics of the frame, the shooting point and the angle.
Has become widespread nowadays tourist landscape photography. Although not essentially a separate genre, tourist landscape photography has become very popular due to both the availability of photographic equipment and the opportunity to visit the most remote corners of our planet.
The main feature of landscape photography is its accessibility. It does not require any scenery or staging tricks; it does not depend on the mood of the model or the preferences of the customer. It depends on the surrounding nature and weather conditions. And in this sense landscape photography unique. Whether it’s a park or an alley within the city, or maybe a mountain range or the quiet expanse of a lake beyond its borders - wherever you are, on vacation or on a business trip, in your own country or abroad, it is everywhere - nature - amazing a natural space capable of changing shape, content and color every minute, day after day, all year round, for thousands of years... And even if the landscape photograph you take does not contain any semantic core, it will always be aesthetic, which means will always remind you of the essence and forms of beauty.
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