The Hidden Treasures in Shooting Plain Landscapes Close to Home

Landscape photography often aims to capture grand scenes full of drama and beauty, but what if you don’t have a convenient mountain just outside your back door? This great video follows a photographer as he shoots storms near his home and deals with the challenge of a flat and generally featureless landscape.

Coming to you from Nick Page, this awesome video follows him as he shoots storms near his home as they move over some rather plain wheat fields. It’s an interesting challenge, as the wheat leaves him struggling to create compelling foregrounds, but in the end, he’s quite successful in creating some fascinating images. I also think Page makes a great point about shooting near home, namely that you should keep a close eye on the weather when you’re at home, as it’s the only place where you’ll likely be able to make snap decisions about shooting when interesting storms or the like pass through and still have time to grab your equipment and get out to capture it. Even if you live in a place that isn’t particularly visually interesting, you can almost always find compelling compositions, and knowing where they are ahead of time and practicing with them can make the difference when the good weather comes along. Check out the video above for Page’s full thoughts.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out "Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi." 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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7 Comments

Glad to see that other landscape photographers are shooting close to home too. It seems like everywhere you look, "lansdcape photography" is synonymous with an epic roadtrip to exotic hotspots in the American Southwest, and/or of course the sexy trips to Iceland or Patagonia.

I've never had the luxury of S-loads of spending cash for such luxurious adventures, so I've spent a lot of time noticing cool landscapes around the suburbia I've lived in for my whole life. Sometimes it really pays off, and I hope it also helps society remember to place value on its nearby outdoorsy places, instead of trashing them...

True, we like being at home so a lot of our camera trips involve short drives, luckily we have the Pennines on one side and the North York moors on the other, with Northumberland an hour up the road. That’s Bamburgh, Hadrians wall, Whitby, Roseberry Topping, Staithes etc. The Lake District is only a couple of hours drive but i want to go ultra local like you are referring to and get some snaps within say 10 miles of our house.

Living in Southern California, with the insane traffic, /everything/ can be an hour or more away, even if you just want to go 10 miles down the freeway.

But, I have similar ranges, depending on my available time and gas money. On a single tank of gas I can get somewhere that is 2-3 hours away, and back, which from Southern California does include quite a vast array of landscapes. But still, it can be disheartening to have visited all of those places at least a few times over the last 10-20 years, and see other photographers hopping around the globe like it's nothing... My ideal travel isnt't so fleeting anyways, though, so I don't know why I feel jealous sometimes. I'd rather just move to a new place and get to know its local beauty for a few years, instead of trying to capture it all in a few days.

If i lived in Southern California id be happy cruising about with hollywood nights on the stereo haha.

seriously though id never ever get tired of sunset on the coast down there, its my favourite type of shot.

You know the experience of driving around your area and then one day just taking a walk and all the things you 'discover' while walking? It's like a whole new world has been found. It kind of worked that way for me when I slowed down while driving. I noticed much more. And I also got some interesting and pleasant shots while doing so. Now that I'm retired I have been able to find so many new and interesting things. Life's short. Slow down and take in as much as you can.

Wow! Amazing pics...
I had seen something like this while metal detecting near the field a few years ago... it was very impressive!
If I d=remember correctly, I had posted some pics here https://detecthistory.com but I am not sure that they are available...

Great shots, reminds me some I've made at mountains for my https://watchestalk.com