A lot of your best landscape work depends less on dramatic light and more on whether you show up when the weather looks boring. This video is about building that habit, then using simple choices to turn gray conditions into frames you actually want to keep.
Turning a flat landscape raw file into something moody and dramatic is often the difference between an image you forget and one you remember. When you see how far a single frame can go in Lightroom with careful cleanup, masking, and color work, you start to rethink what is actually possible in post.
Editing a raw landscape file in Lightroom often decides whether an image feels lifeless or close to what you saw on the trail. This video walks through a complete landscape workflow that keeps the edit grounded in reality instead of turning everything into neon drama.
One of the year’s most awaited cameras is finally here, and it comes with major upgrades that users of the previous generation will love. The Sony a7 V may look almost the same, but the internal hardware and handling have a lot to offer.
You are taught early to fill the frame, pack every corner with mountains, clouds, and texture until nothing feels empty. The video above argues that if you never leave room around your subject, your landscapes can start to feel crowded, noisy and harder for viewers to read at a glance.
The right focal length decides whether a scene feels flat or alive. It is a key choice for photographers who want clear subjects instead of cluttered, distant chaos.
The times when you had to buy a new camera to take your photography to the next level are long gone. Cameras haven't been a limiting factor for most genres of photography for many years now. Other types of equipment are much more critical.
If you have been a photographer for any period of time, then perhaps, like me, you have a hard drive or hard drives full of images that you’ve taken over the years. But I ask you, how often do they see the light of day? Can reviewing them help you improve your photography?
Choosing a tripod can be agonizing. The good news? You don’t need to empty your wallet to get one. As a night photographer, I'll reveal four great tripods for photography that nail the sweet spot for stability, functionality, weight—and yes, price. After all, if a tripod can survive a night photographer’s abuse, it’ll be more than good enough for you.
Landscape photography punishes lazy habits and vague plans. If you want images that stand out among other photographers instead of blending into the scroll, you have to confront some blunt lessons about light, gear, and how much effort you are actually putting in.
Shooting waterfalls in dramatic conditions forces you to think beyond the postcard shot and make deliberate decisions about space, timing, and tension in the frame. You see quickly that composition, focal length choices, and the weather you usually curse are what separate generic images from work that actually holds attention.
f/2.8 vs f/4: Is the difference worth the upgrade? Let’s see how Mark Denney thoroughly investigates a long-standing debate among photographers: whether the premium price of a fast f/2.8 lens is truly justified over a more affordable f/4 lens, especially for landscape photography where apertures are typically closed down.
You may be reaching for the wrong glass to capture those stunning landscapes, trading intentional composition for uninspired vastness. Let's discuss why swapping out your go-to wide angle lens for a telephoto or mid-range lens could be the secret to creating truly compelling, focused photography.
Seascapes reward nerve and timing. Olympic National Park delivered here, with fast-moving clouds, shifting tides, and sea stacks large enough to bend your sense of scale.
Landscape work gives you space to breathe and space to think. You walk into wild places, wrestle with messy scenes, and try to make sense of them with a frame and your patience.
In my new YouTube video, Shooting Epic Landscapes in Terrible Weather, I take you behind the scenes of one of the most intense stages of my award-winning project ENLIGHTEN. The episode is about a lesson I learned the hard way: how to work with difficult weather and why those conditions often lead to the most powerful images. Here’s the full story behind that shoot.
Modern mirrorless lenses are beautifully crafted technological masterpieces. Yet, these lenses come at an expense. What if investing in older technology provides a comparable, if not more pleasing, result at a fraction of the price of its modern-day equivalent?
Photographing the landscape can be hard work—at times, very hard work. It entails rising well before daylight, in most cases, and working in sometimes very harsh conditions. Most of the time, you will be out in the woods until well past dark, waiting for just the right moment, which may not come—even after your most valiant efforts.
Let’s talk about shooting from the shadow side, where light rakes across your subject at an angle, transforming ordinary photos into cinematic images by adding dramatic contrast and dimensional depth.
Some people might totally disagree with me on this one. Many photographers will say that upgrading your equipment, traveling farther, or chasing the perfect light is what pushes your work forward. I don’t believe that anymore.
Every year when autumn arrives and the woodlands start to transform, I find myself turning my attention away from the sweeping landscapes and down to the forest floor. The change feels fitting — literally and figuratively — because photographing fungi is all about paying attention to the smallest details. It’s a slower, more deliberate process, where every small adjustment matters.
Autumn in the Utah mountains transforms the landscape into a mosaic of color, and few capture that transformation like Michael Shainblum. In his latest video, he explores how to find order in chaos, turning the overwhelming range of fall tones into cohesive, striking compositions. The focus isn’t on grand vistas but on patterns, textures, and subtle interplay between color and light.
Let’s discuss the importance of capturing well-exposed images in camera to prevent difficulties during post-processing. This can be achieved using various metering modes available on cameras and understanding their impact on exposure settings; however, there is one specific metering mode that can be particularly effective in avoiding bright pixels in your images.
Landscape photography often brings a big questions: what focal length to use. This choice shapes how a scene feels: its depth, focus, and emotion. Picking the right lens isn’t about numbers on a barrel. It’s about how you want the viewer to see.
The Fujifilm GFX100RF challenges the way you think about medium format. A camera like this doesn’t simply compete with interchangeable lens systems. It pushes you to consider portability, design, and shooting style in ways that matter when you’re out in the field.
When it comes to photography and filmmaking, there are numerous filters to choose from. However, when it comes to choosing the right filters for the job, NiSi made that choice much easier with their latest design.
Every photographer has heard this advice before: pack light. But on a multi-day wilderness shoot, it’s about more than cameras and lenses. Your survival kit matters just as much as your gear.
Understanding the histogram is essential for any landscape photographer who wants to master exposure and achieve their creative vision. The histogram provides a visual representation of the tonal range in your image, allowing you to make informed decisions in-camera and during post-processing.
One of the most important things we can do when we are engineering our photographs is to control, or to direct, where we want the viewer’s eyes to go—what it is that we want them to see.
Cityscapes in black and white can give you a completely different way of looking at familiar places. Stripping away color emphasizes structure, light, and movement, and it pushes you to think about form instead of surface details. Black and white also makes you notice what’s often overlooked in a busy city frame.
This lens is definitely not what we expected, and I’m saying that as a good thing. Gone are the days of wide lenses being such a hassle to use, and this lens is one of the reasons behind that.
I entered the field and profession of photography in 1978, having worked as a photographer’s assistant for two years.
Astrophotography is growing rapidly in popularity. Better and more reasonably priced equipment, computer control, and a heightened interest in what is in the night sky have all combined to expand the number of photographers who do night sky imaging. Some create landscapes, better termed “nightscapes,” while others focus on capturing planets, nebulae, and galaxies.
Strategically placing people in landscape photos can create deeper emotional connections, but it also comes with surprising risks when using this powerful technique.
A dark subject against a bright sky creates a common problem. The scene loses depth, and important details disappear. Fixing this issue is about more than pulling up shadows; it’s about maintaining the natural look of both highlights and dark areas without sacrificing one for the other.
Landscape photography is not just an art, it is also an act of endurance, exploration, and personal vision. This is especially true in Patagonia.
This new lens from Viltrox is definitely cheap for what it is, and it can be quite transformational for the right photographer. Now you can get a 14mm full frame for just $200.
We have all been there. It is pre-dawn at a landscape you’ve been waiting for weeks to shoot, or you’re packing up after a wedding reception has ended. You need to find that memory card you just dropped, but your phone flashlight just isn’t cutting it. While a phone flashlight is certainly convenient, it is rarely the right tool for the job.
The Rethink Landscape Toolkit for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw aims to transform the landscape photographer’s editing process and introduce a consistent workflow and an array of flexible tools to improve your photo editing. What is in the toolkit, and does it really help with the editing process?
Not every meaningful photograph comes from epic adventures. Humble photography shows that beauty, expression, and discovery are possible wherever you are and whoever you are—at a pace that fits your life.
Light doesn’t just make an image; it shapes it. Shade and balance can be the difference between a flat photo and one that feels alive. When you think about your next outing, consider how you’re letting the environment work for you, not just what your camera can record.
Wide angle lenses can make the biggest landscapes look small and dull. You’ve seen it yourself: mountains that felt huge when you were standing there shrink to a disappointing background when viewed on your screen. That gap between how it looks in person and how it looks in the photo is the problem this video tackles.
If you want to find out about six essential apps for night (and day) photography, you've come to the right place. Whether you have iOS or Android, these apps will greatly enhance your photography. The sixth one is surely one that doesn't make it on many photography app lists!
Clear OutsideFree: Android or iOS
This is lightning season for large parts of the U.S. and Europe and the rest of the world, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.
Where I live in Southern Arizona, we're in the monsoon season, with heavy rains and lots of electrical activity in our skies.
Computational photography has long been a staple of smartphone photography, enabling tiny sensors to punch above their weight and perform some neat tricks, but is the technology at the point where it can replace traditional methods of photography?
Specs aren’t everything. There are factors beyond what we can see in spec sheets that matter more when it comes to choosing gear, and we should always keep them in mind.
Golden hour is a great start, but learning to use light well goes far beyond the time of day. Here are three things about light I learned the hard way—and that I hope will help you make stronger landscape photographs.