When you think of landscape photography, you often associate it with wide angle lenses. However, when you think of minimal and simple landscape photography, you often associate it with telephoto lenses. Can a wide angle lens be used to create minimalist landscape photos?
The Danish countryside is not known for landscape photography. This is probably due to our lack of mountains, waterfalls, glaciers, or volcanoes. However, what Danish art and design are known for are minimalism and function. This can very well be due to our minimal geography. Endless beaches, rural landscape, long rolling hills, moors, and woodland are what you can find in Denmark. A landscape that invites simple and minimal landscape photography with a standard or telephoto lens. However, a wide angle lens is not an unnecessary part of the landscape photography kit.
In the above video, I visit three different locations typical to the Danish landscape: a grassy hilltop with a lone tree, a pier along the beach, and a wheat field with a lone tree. Yes, I have a thing for lone trees. At the first location, I go really wide — all the way to 12mm. The benefit of the 12mm focal length is I can include the foreground and create a good sense of depth, while at the same time include a lot of the sky for the effect of negative space. I reuse this approach with the final tree location; however, I do it at 24mm, and it is important to add that the low perspective is crucial to emphasize the foreground and hide the background trees. I did not manage to hide them all, but Photoshop is a great help for that. At the second location, I visit a pier. Is there any better place to find a good open space than along the sea? Here, you do not have to take your surroundings too much into consideration, and a clean minimalist photo is easy to accomplish.
Check out the video above, and let me know if you use a wide angle lens for minimalist landscape photography.
