What is a landscape photograph?

I recently served as one of three judges for a photo contest sponsored by the local nature center. One question came up "what is a landscape photograph"? At what point does a close up of a plant, flower, tree or rock leave the realm of a landscape image? Is a close-up of patterns in a rock a landscape? A single flower compared to a field of flowers? I will appreciate any comments.

That's a tough question John! I have asked that myself many times when deciding where to post an image on NPN galleries - should a leafscape go in Landscape or Flora?, etc, etc. In the end, at least in my mind, the choice belongs to the photographer, unless it is specified somewhere that abstracts, etc. are NOT to be listed in a particualr venue. With NPN it's easy - post where you like, and if the mods feel they need to move it, they can. For a contest, I imagine it would be a bit harder, with huges areas of gray to be argued over. I feel your pain.

Thanks for your comments Bill. I should have included the rules for this contest allow the judges to move a photo to a different catagory if they felt it was not entered in the correct one.

I recall a memorable discussion among six serious/ advanced amateur photographers on this topic about three decades ago. It was memorable in that those six photographers actually reached agreement as to what constituted a landscape image and how it could be incontrovertibly differentiated from other sorts of views of nature. Amazing, eh?.....

Oh...,yeah...that point of differentiation? It's one I've since considered most reasonable - that a landscape image reveals, to some definitive discernible degree, some recognizable feature of the topography of the site of the imaged scene. Any closer view that fails to unarguably characterize the nature of the earth's surface at that site falls under the rubric of "other" or "nature" or "floral/ vegetation/ wildlife or some sort. A couple of points that were resolved prior to mutual acceptance of the definition were: 1) the sky may or may not be visible in the image, and 2) the image format ( "portrait" vs. "landscape") is immaterial.

This all continues to seem eminently reasonable to me.

Dave Graham
East River, SD

Obviously there is reasonable flexibility in the guidelines of what is a landscape and I'd guess all are agreeable that there should be. Are all images judged equally and given the identical flexibility? There will, of course, be differing opinions about that.

Charlie

Countless ways one could look at this and try and define it, like in David's example above. Personally, I've found the more you try and define something (relating to categorizing photography) the bigger hole you dig and the more examples you can come up with that fit, or do not fit the definition, further confusing things.

For example, just about every image posted here has some sort of plant life - whether it be trees, grass or even little things like lichen or moss. Does that mean all these images are exclusive to Flora? Of course not. But turning it around I think "Landscape" becomes the generic bucket that "most" images can fall in to.

When all else fails, Wikipedia. I like their definition. The discussion is also interesting to read. Here's how it's defined:

Landscape photography is a genre intended to show different spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. This popular style of photography is practiced by professionals and amateurs alike. Photographs typically capture the presence of nature and are often free of man-made obstructions. Landscape photographers usually attempt not only to convey the documentary aspect, but also an appreciation of the scenery that is being photographed.

I like that definition Lon. In John's example of a competition, a definition should be accepted before submissions arrive, much less before judging starts. But in my experience as a judge, the discussions usually start as the panel considers a single photo within the show. Is it, or isn't it landscape?

And it can get "complicated" for photos to be used for specific purposes other than art shows. For example, in our experience providing travel photos, "landscapes" with people in them sell 10X better than the same scenes minus the people (we include both in submissions). In that venue or market, the advertising gurus say people in the photo are an important "you are there" element because it helps viewers and potential clients picture themselves in the same setting. Is it a landscape when people are present? The buxx say yeah, aside from any artistic definition.

I think people can often lend a sense of scale that's needed. Some of the waterfalls I saw in Iceland were huge, but without people in the scene you couldn't see that. As for what is a landscape, it's sort of like pornography. I know it when I see it.


Kent in SD

Landscape Or Nature Photography? To me its all the same, if a landscape has no signs of interference of humans, I consider it also nature photography, I just call it Nature

A very simple definition someone gave me was 1:1 or greater magnification is macro, larger falls into another catagory. Maybe too simple, but nice and objective.

Hi all,

I teach a 3 hour class in landscape each semester (among other things). I place my assignments as variants of "landscape" or "details in the landscape" which covers close ups to vistas. In initial discussions each semester, I think and describe landscapes in much the same was as 19th century paintings, or vistas with a building, an animal, rivers, strreams, lakes, oceans, forests, mountains, ugliness or beauty. I live on the edge of the Texas Hill Country (Austin) so this isn't exactly the Sierras, we have to work at finding subject matter.

Lynn

I would submit that a "Landscape Photo" is whatever the judges say it is. The criteria for image submission should be developed and communicated to contestants at the start of the contest. Then the question becomes: Does the submission meet the judges criteria? Not is this a Landscape photo or not which is a subjective question to which there is no legitimate answer; or, perhaps to which all answers are legitimate.

"...that a landscape image reveals, to some definitive discernible degree, some recognizable feature of the topography of the site of the imaged scene. Any closer view that fails to unarguably characterize the nature of the earth's surface at that site falls under the rubric of "other" or "nature" or "floral/ vegetation/ wildlife or some sort. "

This definition works for me. I can see where a photograph of the land that contains people, or other hand-of-man, could be considered a landscape under David's definition, but for me, a landscape photograph should be free of any indication of hand-of-man.

--P

Hi John,
Each semester, I teach a 3 hour class in Landscape (we train professional photographers). To give you a rough idea about how varied this subject is I'll give you some of my assignments. Also a detail in the landscape could be from a close up detail of a few inches to a 15 or 20 foot detail in the landscape. A "full" landscape could be from one hundred or so feet to several miles. Important information would include frontal, back, or side lighting. Assignments might include, b/w detail, full b/w scape, color detail, color scape, from land over water to land, landscape with flowers in the foreground, sunrise or sunset, portrait of a tree in the scape, old building in the scape, person or animal in the scape, detail or scape in shadowless lighting, false moonlight in the scape, or any anything else which might be triggered in class discussion, I certainly don't mind an instant change in assignment when this is important to the class..

Lynn