Landscape photography

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ansel Adams : The Tetons and the Snake River
Berchtesgaden National Park - Hintersee with a view of the Hochkater
Autumn idyll in the southern Wipptal

The landscape photography deals with the mapping of the animate and inanimate environment of man apart. It is closely related to nature photography , environmental photography , travel photography , architectural photography , but also still life photography , when the viewing areas approach the designed parks and gardens, for example.

issue

Her pioneers, Hermann Krone in the 19th century and Ansel Adams in the 20th century , sought to make nature, unaffected by humans, the focus of their work. Their aim was the image that was as "true to life" as possible, often as a representation of untouched, archaic nature.

Good landscape pictures convey the spirit and atmosphere of a place, allow the viewer to immerse themselves deeply in the scenery, almost as if he were there himself.

Large image formats were mostly used in view cameras . Since that phase, landscape photography has developed in many directions. The New Topographic Movement was influential in the 1970s. Human intervention in the landscape was taken up as a determining element. For example, Margherita Spiluttini shows large-format images of the stone quarries that humans have put into the environment and the Alps that have been shaped by traffic and the use of hydropower.

Photographer Michael Light said of this development:

“I love idyllic places and the kind of suspension of history they offer. But noble beauty is not enough these days. One must complicate the picture, because there's now nowhere to 'escape' to on the planet in pursuit of a hermetic pastoralism or a redemptive wilderness sublime. Earth is now a human park. "

“I love idyllic places and the impression of lack of history they offer. But noble beauty is not enough today. You have to make the picture more complicated, because there is nowhere on this planet to 'escape' in search of the self-sufficient shepherd's idyll or the redeeming wilderness. Today the earth is a man-made park. "

- Michael Light

A reference to reportage photography can also be established through human intervention or the documentation of current events . Worlds torn by war, but also environmental disasters, offer ample space for photographic work.

While Spiluttini and many other representatives of landscape photography dedicate themselves to the "exact" image, some contemporary photographers such as the Finn Miklos Gaál alienate real scenes with the extreme blurring that is possible through the adjustment of view cameras into surreal scenes that are reminiscent of the macro shots of Remember model trains. This could be seen as a take-up of the ideas of the beginning of the 20th century, with which photography freed itself from the necessity of exact reproduction.

Today landscape photography deals with both the animate and the inanimate human environment. While she lived to a large extent from naturally available light then as now, for the photographer it is often the right moment that counts.

technology

Aside from deliberate creative blurring, attempts are made in landscape photography to take pictures with great depth of field and detail. Landscape photographers usually have enough time to set up a tripod and thus to look for the optimal perspective and section . The time around sunrise and sunset, or at least light situations in the morning or afternoon, is often used for optimal light because the light does not shine as hard as it does at noon. Exposure series take the place of series images . Panoramas are also often recorded to depict the dimensions of a landscape. One example is David Hockney's "Grand Canyon". The weather and the season also have a major impact on the effect. Examples are an extraordinary light or cloud mood, shortly before or after a thunderstorm or an effect typical of the season.

Sharpness

The following parameters apply to achieve optimal image sharpness in landscape photography:

  • The lowest possible ISO value in order to minimize image noise (or graininess ).
  • It is best to take pictures in RAW format in order to produce lossless images for post-processing.
  • Even good lenses should be stopped down by at least two steps, but no more than "two steps down". Often these are aperture values around 5.6 to 11. By stopping down, not only the general image quality but also the depth of field increases, which is usually desirable.
  • This results in an exposure time that cannot always be held by hand without shaking. A good tripod is therefore the most important utensil of the landscape photographer in poor lighting conditions.
  • Cable release (or electric remote release) or self-timer and mirror lock-up reduce camera shake and should always be used when taking pictures from a tripod if the subject allows it.
  • The autofocus often interferes with landscape shots, especially when shooting in low light (twilight, sunrises and sunsets). Manual focus to infinity (∞) is mostly correct.

filter

The following filters are often used in landscape photography:

  • Polarizing filters can make blue skies appear stronger and reduce reflections on water surfaces. Its effect, which appears stronger in the sky blue, only unfolds in side light.
  • Graduated gray filters darken a light sky and thus reduce the contrast range of the image. In digital photography, creating a high dynamic range image from a series of exposures , often with specially designed software, can sometimes be an alternative. Instead of gray gradient filters, color gradient filters can also be used, but with the advent of digital image processing these will be displaced and replaced by digitally generated gradients.
  • Neutral gray filters extend the exposure time so that motion blur , especially of running water, becomes effective.
  • Color filters (red, green, yellow, orange) are only used in analog black and white photography and can enhance the impression of the landscape. A yellow filter, for example, works out the clouds against a blue sky better, and a green filter differentiates the leaf green in forest photos. In digital photography, they can be largely replaced by digital image processing when converting a color image into a black and white image.
  • UV filters block UV radiation and should therefore lead to higher-contrast images. The filter is no longer necessary with modern coated lenses because they already filter sufficient UV light due to their design. The filter often serves as a comparatively inexpensive mechanical lens protection.

history

Landscape photography is the continuation of landscape painting with other technical aids. Since its inception, landscape photography has dealt with the image of nature and the human environment. Together with classic portrait photography, it is one of the first and essential genres of professional photography. Landscape photography also played a special role in connection with expeditions from the 19th and 20th centuries to the present day, when it comes to capturing largely unknown or remote landscape motifs.

Hermann Krone is considered one of the first pioneers. As early as the 1850s, he was photographing landscapes in Saxon and Bohemian Switzerland. Together with his son Johannes Krone, he took part as a photographer in 1874 on a German expedition to the Auckland Islands , which served to observe the transit of Venus on December 9, 1874. He wrote a report about this expedition entitled Father and Son on a World Tour .

An American pioneer of landscape photography was the expedition photographer Timothy H. O'Sullivan , who photographed the first icons of the genre in Canyon de Chelly as early as 1873 . Other work included recordings in the Rocky Montains and the American West on behalf of the US War Department and railroad companies, as well as expeditions z. B. to Panama.

In the spring of 1941, Ansel Adams received a letter from the then US Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes, requesting that he photograph the national parks in the United States . He traveled to Carlsbad Caverns National Park to start taking photos for the US Department of the Interior. During the trip he recorded from the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi in Mesa Verde National Park or from the Adobe - Pueblos of Acoma , also felt Adams in his own way the historical photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan after which this already in 1873 in Canyon de Chelly had made. In the summer of 1942, the photographer continued his extensive photo excursion for the government through various national parks : he photographed the geysers of Yellowstone National Park and stopped in Rocky Mountain National Park in Glacier National Park and finally in Mount McKinley National Park (today Denali National Park ). Due to the war, the Ministry's project was discontinued. These photos became icons of environmental photography in later exhibitions because they showed Americans in the cities what the national parks in the deserted western United States looked like.

The National Geographic Society presented during the 20th century landscape photography in the center of its publishing work, true to the motto: "... to increase the geographical knowledge and spread."

Well-known landscape photographers

literature

  • David Köster: The Start in Landscape Photography: The Secret of Breathtaking Pictures , Humboldt, 1st edition, 2019, ISBN 978-3869100876 .
  • Carl Heilmann: National Geographic. Photo practice: Landscape photography , National Geographic, 1st ed., 2011, ISBN 978-3866902251 .
  • Hans-Peter Schaub: The photography school in pictures. Landscape photography , Galileo Design, 1st edition, 2015, ISBN 978-3836236737 .
  • Hans-Peter Schaub: Nature photography: The great school of photography - spectacularly staging nature, landscape, macro and animals , 2017, ISBN 978-3836259101 .
  • Michael Hennemann: Landscape photography - the practical book for perfect shots , market and technology, 2nd edition, 2018, ISBN 978-3959820912 .
  • Cornelia Dörr, Ramon Dörr, Astrid Schnieders: Nature and Landscape Photography, Franzis, 2009, ISBN 978-3772364785 .
  • Robert Caputo: The Great National Geographic Photography Guide, Landscape Photography , 2007, ISBN 978-3934385665 .

Web links

Commons : Landscape / Nature (excellent pictures)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Believer: Interview with Lawrence Weschler , November / December 2010
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Baier: Source representations for the history of photography. 2nd edition, Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-921375-60-6 , p. 501.
  3. ^ American Experience - Ansel Adams. PBS , 2002, accessed June 17, 2008 .
  4. ^ Adams: Autobiography , p. 253