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Introduction to Landscape Photography

Unlike most photographic subjects that can be manipulated and positioned to the photographers will, a landscape demands that the photographer manipulate and position themselves in accordance with it. In other words, though you may be kind of artist who can move proverbial mountains, the real ones aren't going anywhere.  Therefore, a landscape photographer must first learn how to find their relationship to landscape and its play of light, form, color, depth of field, and perspective. The long distances that landscape photos can cover make depth of field a major technical focus, requiring the use of small apertures, wide angle lenses and tripods. The use of the collodion at the dawn of photography in the mid 1800s made traveling particularly difficult and expensive, relegating it only to professionals and wealthy amateurs. The commercial landscape photographers used daguerreotype: a crisp and sharply defined image; while aristocratic amateurs chose calotype: a more demure, artistic interpretation of landscape that later influenced pictorialism. Like its parallels in the art and literary world, landscape photography was influenced by the Modernist debate around ‘truth' and realism. The early decades of the 20th century would see a rediscovery of the early pictorialists and then, again, a return to realism, especially as future generations continued to redefine landscape photography in response to a shifting cultural zeitgeist. With the advent of digital technology, darkroom expertise has become less necessary in the creation of photos. Whether this makes for better or worse art is still in debate. But the many interpretations of landscape art available today show that a variety of competing styles only serves to and interest and creative exploration to the field.

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Artspan Landscape Photography Directory