Over twenty years ago Chuck O'Rear took a photo that soon became part billions of peoples everyday lives. He captured Bliss on his way to see his girlfriend, he pulled over when he spotted the perfect scene in Sonoma County California. On the side of the road with his medium format camera, he took what would soon become the most viewed image of all time as a staple of Microsoft. After twenty-one years of unimaginable fame, O'Rear is back with a tribute to the epic American nature and a reminder for us all to cherish our earth's beauties.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! That buzzing noise you hear overhead isn't superman either, it's a remote control drone with thousands of dollars in camera equipment strapped to the bottom. And wow do they get some cool images.

Historic? Really? Allow me to justify. Despite 2021 being their inaugural year, the Natural Landscape Photography Awards have already earned a reputation among the landscape photography community as a bastion against the powerful influences of social media on the art form.

Not long ago, I released a review of Sigma's newest Art-series lens, the 20mm f/1.4 Art. Unfortunately, Northern California skies have had bit of a tough time clearing up despite numerous requests from astrophotographers below, patiently waiting for news of this lens' nighttime, Milky Way performance. Last night, although far from perfect, areas of the sky did clear up enough to get a small consensus on how this lens fares when pointed toward the stars.

Sit back and relax with this one. It takes a lot of time and talent to create a final work of time-lapse art this breathtaking and impressive. It turns out it takes about two years of planning and dedication to achieve results like these. The Northern Lights have rarely been captured in this amount of splendor and beauty.

The largest single landscape print I have made to date is a ten-foot-wide panorama of the Painted Rock at Fort Irwin. Titled A Thousand Words Fall Short, I donated it to a Veterans' clinic on the 4th of July. Printed on Fuji-crystal archival paper, front-mounted to 1/4" museum acrylic with an anti-glare coating, and backed by a solid sheet of aluminum, it really caught and exalted the light in the humble hallway where I was honored to see it hanging a couple days ago.

Last week Jerusalem had one of the heaviest snow storms ever recorded in the region. Media outlets called it a "Historic Storm" and "Biblical Snowstorm," and thousands of people lost power and got stuck at home. Some even got stuck in their cars on the highway. This didn't stop photography student Nitzan Yogev (24) from going outside, hopping on the light-rail train and recording one of the most captivating snow videos I've ever seen - and all shot on the iPhone 5s.

Morning red needs some special requirements to appear. Find out how to plan and photograph red sky to get a masterpiece.

Sometime around 3 a.m. this morning, I awoke to a strong light beaming through my bedroom window. It was the supermoon glowing big and bright. I crawled out of bed, grabbed my camera gear, and set up a tripod on my tiny patio in Amsterdam to shoot the famous supermoon lunar eclipse — that phenomenon that happens only a few times each century.

Get a behind the scenes look at photographing mountain landscapes in this video brought to you by Alex Nail Photography,

The polarizing filter is an essential part of the landscape photographer’s tool kit. It can make a huge difference to the final photo. However, there are a few things to be aware of.

Around this time last year, I was asked to shoot a wedding for a young couple getting married in Charleston. I came to find out that the groom's father was none other than Nikon advertising photographer Mark Alberhasky. Mark and I hit it off instantly so when I found out he has been shooting wildlife with Nikon's V1 mirrorless camera, I knew he would be perfect for Fstoppers Mirrorless Month. Mark explains how mirrorless cameras can out perform dlsrs

Because of the pandemic forest photography is more popular than ever. Forest photography is also one of the really hard genres of nature photography to be successful at. Fog and good conditions are usually necessary for success, but they are just not enough.

Creator and editor of Lonely Speck, pro night sky photographer Ian Norman is back with another great tutorial. Being nothing short of passionate when it comes to astrophotography Ian always seems eager to share what he has learned over the years. In his latest video Ian gives us the rundown on how he post processes Milky Way photos in Lightroom.

If you, like I, are stuck in less than inspiring locations you might need a little push or kick to actually get out and do what you love: landscape photography.

Photographers across social media channels chimed in late this week as leaked documents were made public by the Washington Post on Thursday detailing the proposed size reductions and restructuring of both the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as well as the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

A near-ubiquitous access to digital photography and a connection to the rest of the world has given this generation of humans unprecedented ability to share a heavily curated lifestyle with the world and vicariously live the lives of others. Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms offer a way to share only what you want with the world. Nobody needs to see anything outside the frame you present. The image and the story you tell are all that matters in a world where people cannot see outside your post. But just what is happening outside that post? What impact does it have on the world at large?

When was the last time you saw a spider, and decided to stop what you're doing and stare right at it? Or maybe take your camera and do a 1-on-1 photoshoot from few millimeters away? What most of us really do is somewhere between screaming, and jumping on the nearest sofa. But there is a small group of photographers that instead of screaming like a 2 year old, actually go and look for these insects. They find them and photograph them up close, and it's amazing to see how these tiny insects really look. If the insects you meet daily scare you, wait until you see this set of images.

This week we released our 5th photography tutorial: Photographing The World with Elia Locardi. Since this tutorial was going to be filmed over the course of 2 months in Iceland and New Zealand, we decided to turn the cameras back around on ourselves and show you how we filmed this massive video project.

Beth Moon is a photographer who specializes in classic black and white imagery. Over the last 14 years she has been traveling the world documenting the oldest and largest trees on the planet. To promote her new book "Ancient Trees: Portraits in Time," Moon has shared this behind-the-scenes video of her platinum printing darkroom process which is pretty interesting to watch. Platinum printing is viewed by many to be the absolute best form of archival printing, and Moon's results are absolutely gorgeous.

Adventure, outdoor, and eco-sports photography has had a surge in popularity over the last decade. Rapidly growing social media outlets like Instagram have narrowed a spotlight across specific arenas of interest. Many photographers are making a living on the outskirts of the grid creating mesmerizing imagery of U.S. National Parks, remote foreign territory, and backcountry destinations only accessible by highly technical off-road transportation or arduous hiking. With the flux of imagery and surge of outdoor brands promoting a simpler lifestyle more closely connected to nature, more photographers are taking to the outdoors to create imagery that communicates a love for nature.

Technical perfection, originality, environmentalism, story, aesthetics, and realism are all concepts or principles we as landscape photographers can value. What we value will define how we do our landscape photography and if those photos will ever be any good.

Spring is one of the harder seasons to pull off landscape and nature photography. There is ways to get around it and here is some inspiration.

If there is one questions we can undoubtedly answer, it's that the galaxy is larger than any of us can possibly comprehend. Though with help from the astonishing teams at NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) along with the Hubble Space Telescope we can get just a glimpse of how massive it really is with an image containing and astonishing 1.5 billion pixels.

The Nik Collection by Google carries some of the most powerful image editing applications for photographers. One of these applications, Color Efex Pro, has the ability to dramatically enhance the stories inside your landscape images. Out of the 55 filters available in Color Efex, there are five that I come back to using time and time again. In this article, I will show you what these essential filters are and explain how they make processing my images much less draining.

If you struggle with the different concepts of composition, this in-field tutorial might be something for you.

Photographer Michael "Nick" Nichols is a National Geographic veteran and one of the best wildlife photographers working today. In this episode of National Geographic Live!, his imagery and stories about Africa's elephants and lions will both break and warm your heart. In his own words, Nichols tells his stories behind the already fantastic magazine stories - ranging from the disgusting aftermath of ivory poachers to the cute and cuddly playfulness of lion cubs

The ME20F-SH is Canon's latest, crazy-high ISO camera, able to record clean video at over ISO 4 million (not a typo). Early footage was lackluster in content, and early media stated the natural security-field uses for such a camera. But the latest video suggests the ME20F-SH could be used to shoot incredibly beautiful footage of our world that wouldn't have been able to be captured the same way in the past.

I have no qualms in admitting macro photography isn’t my thing, but these images stopped me in my ferocious scrolling. One photographer is sharing images he creates of water droplets refracting light from what is behind them. Click through for some of the most mesmerizing macro photos you’ve ever seen.

How did technology make "Planet Earth" so much more cinematic? If we go back to how it was done back in the day and compare it to the technology we have today, it's quite a leap. Back in the day 35mm was the broadcast standard. The 35mm cameras were bulky and heavy, they were perfect for studio and not for the shots that they needed. In the filming circles and the BBC insiders saw 16mm film as being for amateurs. But, thanks to David Attenborough first taking his 16mm camera out to shoot abroad and coming back with footage of animals never filmed before, it changed opinions. This made the program that later became one of the best wildlife documentaries of all time.

Transform boring, wide scenes into dramatic and intimate close-ups with a telephoto lens that brings you into the photo, focusing on the fine details.

It’s summer now, and that means we have good temperatures and conditions to go out and shoot. Sunrise and sunset are especially great moments to get good photography conditions, not only because you can catch incredible colors but also because the light can be too harsh during the day.

Storm chasing on the Great Lakes can be a hit-or-miss enterprise. In particular, Lake Michigan presents a formidable challenge because the weather here typically travels west to east across the lake and often changes rapidly once over the water.

My favorite season is about to hit the Northern hemisphere, autumn. With its riotous color and vibrancy, the forests of autumn transform into a landscape and nature photographers' playground. Here are my tips for planning your ultimate fall color adventure.

That's right, it's just about every photographer's favorite time of year. The last thing that anyone wants is to have the season come and go without having had the chance to capture as much of it as we can. Whether you shoot landscapes, or portraits, or even if you don't take pictures at all but still want to have the chance to make the most of the autumn colors then here are some tips that might help.

How often do you think about either being deceived by or deceiving the viewer when you think about landscape photography? It's a topic worth talking about, as depending on how strongly you feel, it's a potentially polarizing subject.

In a rather raw video posted to Youtube earlier today, a man jumps off some rocks and into the water only to find his friends screaming, "Shark!" behind him. Captured from a GoPro he attached before jumping in, this video gives us get a pretty good POV glimpse of what that would feel like. What would you do in that situation?

Creating microscopic or macroscopic photography requires considerable skill and proper equipment. But you don’t need to be a professional photographer to appreciate the fascinating world that this mind-blowing imaging opens up.

Long exposure photography has a special place in my heart and arguably has been where I spend most of my time when creating landscapes as it allows a greater amount of control over a sometimes chaotic scene. Adam Karnacz from First Man Photography expresses similar sentiments and explains some great tips for photographers interested in expanding their creative options by adding long exposure photography to their landscape arsenal.

A week ago today, a friend of mine introduced me to environmental art photographer Jack Gescheidt. Minutes after talking with Jack about his Tree Spirit Project I knew I had to share his work with the Fstoppers community. Jack's photographs are unlike anything I've ever seen; yet even while they appear rather innocent, they still somehow strike up a bit of controversy. In a nutshell, the Tree Spirit Project is as much about bringing attention to ecological injustice as much as it is about evoking an almost spiritual experience for Jack and those posing in the photographs (yes he has posed in his own images). By allowing both groups and individuals to pose naked on and around trees that are involved in political and ecological debate, Jack has not only found a way to create amazing art but also unite communities together who value their natural surroundings. Recently Jack was in Charleston, South Carolina where he caused a huge media frenzy as he posed more than a dozen people naked around the Angel Oak (claimed to be the oldest living thing east of the Mississippi). Check out Jack Gescheidt's story below and click the full post to see a few images of his work. NOTE: while Jack's work doesn't always contain full frontal nudity, it still might be Not Safe For Work. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did and click here for many more photos of Jack's amazing work.

Mike Olbinski, an award-winning photographer, did it again. Here is his latest production, a stunning time-lapse showing some of the most powerful thunderstorms, supercell structures, and tornadoes of the American Midwest. Olbinski specializes on storm chasing but this season was particularly tough for him. Mother Nature has not been cooperative this year despite his extensive weather forecast knowledge. The storm chaser had to drive 27,000 miles across 10 states during a month to capture the 90,000 frames necessary to finish the project. Hence, he called this video “Pursuit.”

Lots of people get out and travel, and spend time in some of the most scenic places the United States has to offer during the week of Independence Day. I'm even writing this article from a cafe nestled deep in Sequoia National Forest in California! In celebration of this holiday, CanvasFactory worked closely with 50 photographers in all 50 states to take an iconic image that represented where they reside, and have presented them all in a single, interactive map.

The Syrp Genie caught everyone's attention with its contemporary design and advanced automation features that made it a time-lapse photographer's best tool in the field. Today, photographer Mark Gee shares tips on how to set up and use the Genie while offering a few great suggestions that apply to all methods of landscape photography, from what apps he uses on his phone to help him plan every shot to how to edit for final output. Need to shoot a time-lapse soon? Whether you're experienced or just starting, there's undoubtedly something in here for you.

While the original source couldn't be independently confirmed, the studio behind the recently released movie, "Everest," apparently sent BBC a clip of the still unreleased film without audio effects. Instead, throughout the entire otherwise hair-raising scene, the actors speak to each other in a tone seemingly more appropriate for a focus group discussion between amateurs trying to solve a Rubik's cube than for a life-threatening situation climbing Mount Everest.

You may already be familiar with Dustin Farrell. If you're not, you should be. His time-lapses are incredible. Dustin's shoots all over the world, but some of his most epic are from the American West. In this video, we get to follow Dustin on location in Utah and the step-by-step process that follows.

Who hasn’t contemplated the idea of living a simpler life? I know that I certainly have, pondering from time to time what my life would look with smaller bills and rent. What would my art be like if I could downsize just a bit? Could I ever dare? People everywhere are beginning to realize that they have become slaves to their own lifestyles. The need to be better and bigger than the next guy has taken over our lives, and had compromised our ability to live an authentic life.