Landscape Photography

A private collector in Las Vegas just bought Peter Lik's, "Phantom," today for an unprecedented $6.5 million making this sale the most expensive photograph in history. Peter didn't just call it a day with one sale, he also sold, "Illusion," for $2.4 million and, "Eternal Moods," for $1.1 million. That's just a cool $10 million dollar payday for LIK USA™. These sales from today now make Peter Lik hold four of the top 20 spots for most expensive photographs ever sold. He had already been listed previously with a $1 million sale for his image, "One."

It seems you can’t go a day or two without seeing a new time-lapse film of the Northern Lights. And while beautiful, it has become incredibly difficult for photographers and filmmakers to raise the bar on this much captured phenomenon. That was until Ole C. Salomonsen threw his hat in the ring.

Patrick and I have been in Iceland for 2 weeks with Elia Locardi filming our next tutorial on landscape/travel photography. We brought a truck-load of gear with us but our favorite piece has been our DJI phantom quadcopter. Here's a quick cut of our best drone footage in Iceland.

There's little debate that Iceland remains one of the most sought after locations for landscape photography and this new video from Lytro further emphasizes why that is. Although created as a promotional piece for the Illum camera, Lytro have done a wonderful job on the film by focusing more on photography, story telling and the beauty of the landscape, and simply letting the advantages of the camera shine through on their own.

Known for their well-built camera backpacks that cater to photographers and videographers who take their kit on outdoor adventures, F-Stop Gear is unveiling the "Shinn," a backpack that has an impressive 80 liter capacity. Made specifically for cinematographers with large camera kits, it's been field tested on expeditions around the world, and is now ready to be made available for everyone else.

While a great image of the Milky Way can be awe inspiring in and of itself, it becomes something else entirely when you add some motion. In just 20 minutes, you will have all the information needed to go out and shoot a time-lapse yourself. Whether or not you are willing to spend countless hours alone in the darkness however...

Follow Northern California-based photographer Brian Gaberman as he pursues his love of wet plate collodion photography, on a journey from New York City to Wolfeboro for Element.

Sean Goebel might only do photography in his spare time while working on his PhD in Astronomy, but that hasn't stopped him from licensing work to the likes of Canon, the Discovery Channel, and others. A quick watch of his timelapse works, including Epochs and Mauna Kea Heavens and it is easy to see why. His latest timelapse project is included here, along with a brief look into its creation.

With hopes of saving at-risk environments and capturing them before they are gone forever, a team of 15 timelapse artists have decided to join forces and create a feature film. Eric Hines, Michael Shainblum, Drew Geraci, and Joe Capra are just a few of the names on the "CodeX" roster. They are crowdfunding to try and make this project a reality, and I spoke with team member Ben Canales on why this project matters.

Through the Ground Glass is a beautiful short film by Taylor Hawkins that features large-format photographer, Joseph Allen Freeman as he — very candidly — talks about the process, frustrations, difficulties, and joys of shooting with large-format film. Even if this type of photography isn't your cup of tea, this video is worth a watch.

Warning: NSFW for language.

Eric Crosland is the director of Sherpa Cinema, a collective of artists who produce some pretty amazing stuff. Crosland recently went to some rather remote parts of Iceland with Dave Mossop and John Trapman working on capturing some landscapes, something for which Iceland is a mecca. While there, the Icelandic eruption occurred and Crosland was ready with a Phase One.

Making a timelapse stand out is getting more and more difficult. I love that making them has become much easier and more approachable, but with hundreds being produced every day it can be hard to filter through to find the really great ones. This "layer timelapse" by Julian Tryba goes in a totally different direction than most lapses, ignoring the general perception of time.

Have you ever seen a photo of a unique place, but could never find exactly where it was located? For years, Justin Majeczky was aware of the existence of the Fly Geyser, but only after research and some smooth talking was he able to locate and document this unique phenomena.

If you've never seen the Milky Way in the skies in any rural part of the world, you have been robbed of one of the most magnificent visions on this planet. I grew up in the southern part of Israel, which is a desert called The Negev. All the kids from my block would gather every summer night, lie down on the ground and just stare at the skies for hours on end. I didn't realize how lucky I was to grow up in that desert.

Ever take a photo during the daytime and wish it was at night? Some of you may shake your head, but it there are legitimate times in commercial and editorial projects where this is completely necessary in order to fulfill client/creative requirements. Glyn Dewis has put together this effective and straightforward Photoshop tutorial on how to do just that. Read below to download the original file and try it out yourself!

If you haven't been to Norway this video by Rustad Media will have you booking your plane tickets. This video is the work of a 5 month adventure, shot from a 15,000 km (almost 10,000 miles) long road trip. In addition to video, tens of thousands of images were taken along the way. This journey covered all of Norway’s 19 counties, from the far south to the Russian border in the Northeast.

I get asked day in an day out; "What is that big black box on the front of your lens?" Well, it's a matte box that mounts glass filters in front of your lens... the LEE Filters System. In attempt to cover the question I recieve so often, I wanted to address it all and explain the system, but my friend and fantastic photographer Dave Kai Piper beat me to the punch! So, instead of writing my own article on the matter, I thought it best to simply share his article...

Today, the team at Oregon Live exposed a new rule proposed by the United States Forest Service, that, if passed, will take effect in November. The rule calls for any member of the "media" to first apply for a permit before being allowed to take photos or video on 193 million acres of designated wilderness areas. Oh, and by the way, the permit costs $1,500.

Mountaineering photographer Robert Böesch stood at the ready, next to several cameras as he waited for the right conditions and timing, to capture an unbelievable exposure of the Matterhorn Peak, one of the most notable mountains in the Alps, if not the world. What made the image so special was the team of mountaineers already in place, each with red lights to illuminate the first route ascended on it 150 years ago. This video shows how it was done.

Austin Mann recently got hold of the new iPhone 6 Plus after Apple’s Keynote at the Flint Center in Cupertino, California. In partnership with The Verge, he set out on an amazing adventure through Iceland with the phone in tow. His reason? He wanted to put the iPhone 6 Plus camera through the test to see how much has improved since the iPhone 5s. His results? From focus pixels, focus control, time-lapse and slo-mo, Apple has made all the right improvements and innovations with their iSight camera. The new features are “enabling iPhone users to better capture and share life” says Mann.

Imagine the surprise if your photo was being used on the new promotional images of the iPhone 6 as it was announced earlier this week. Photographer Espen Haagensen was in for the shock of a lifetime as the opening images of the new iPhone 6 were released and his Milky Way photo was used for the new product announcement.

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.

When it comes to taking better photos you can never go wrong with a few choice words from Joe McNally. In this short video Joe reminds us of the importance of giving our audience a sense of scale and demonstrates how the simple addition of a person can create a more compelling image.

Before I began writing for Fstoppers, I spent 18 months working for the photo sharing company SmugMug. While working at SmugMug had many perks, I don't think I enjoyed any of them more than being sent to Norway to assist in the making of the film, Arctic Surf. I was hand picked to tag along with the talented videographer Anton Lorimer as we detailed Chris Burkard's work of photographing surfers in the cold and rugged Arctic Circle. It was an incredible experience, in one of the most beautiful locations that I had ever visited. I even put together a Behind-The-Scenes photo journal of the trip.

In this making of video, outdoor brand Mammut is shown working with Dani Arnold and Stephan Siegrist, two alpinists, to plan a climb up the north face of the Eiger. What makes this ascent unique though, is the inclusion of a 360-degree GoPro setup which is used to capture panoramic shots from the mountainside. The result of their efforts is a unique look into the views, terrain, and conditions that the climbers faced. Mammut recently unveiled an interactive web portal to give anyone who wants to ascend the Eiger, the chance to do so from the comfort of their office chair.

The team over at Dubai 360 shared with us a rather unique view of the world. In the video above, you'll get to watch a full day's revolution of the Earth directly above the Dubai International Airport. You'll see airplanes fly in and soar off, you'll watch them taxi into their various gates and you'll see it all from a spectacular 4K panoramic "little planet" downward view! The team mentions that Terminal 3 actually serves as an hour hand on an imaginary clock with midnight at the top and midday at the bottom, allowing you to know the time of day each frame was taken!

In this excellent installment of the B&H Prospectives video series, photographer Robert Rodriguez Jr. explains what goes in to taking successful landscape images, offers his thought process while out in the field, and dives in to some worthy ideas to inspire the development of your art.

You’ll feel inspired after watching Gavin Heffernan’s (Sunchaser Pictures) stunning time lapse video KINGS, taken in Kings Canyon and Sequoia national park in California. Star trails, the Milky Way and meteors paired with a dramatic soundtrack produce a truly epic and magical visual.

Have you ever felt with limited in your creative field because of where you live? Finn Beales has done what most in his region only dream of: escaping that limitation and embracing the world around him to create his own path as a professional photographer.

It was just a couple years into using Instagram myself before I noticed one name pop up regularly: Merek Davis. Having first been introduced to him as "The Mextures Dude," the fascination with him and the incredible inspriation he brought along with him had me hooked. I immediately began downloading free Mextures individually from his website and using apps like Image Blender to add them to my shots to enhance them with these magnificent colors, textures and custom film grains.