What is a "Landscape Shot"?

[xpatUSA]

I'm having a discussion over here:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/59622021

There, it appears that part of a Utah desert scene with those classic buttes can be called a "landscape" even though the lens used is a Sigma 150-600mm zoom. In other words, a shot of just one butte out of several could still be called a "landscape" shot.

Pardon my pedantry but does that mean a shot of one building be called a city-scape or town-scape?

I am really interested in opinions passed here!

[paintingwithlight]

Ted,

Since you asked for opinions and not facts, I'm your guy!

To my mind, a shot of buttes constitutes a landscape, no matter what kind of lens was used. Edit: unless its a really tight zoom into a small feature of the butte in which case I'd call it "nature photography" instead.

In your dpreview reply I believe that you (or someone else) cited a certain focal range that qualifies as a "-scape." I do not doubt the validity of the assertion. However, the meanings of words change in time - look up the etymology and linguistic drift in words such as "decimate" and "hypocrite."

Cheers,

Michael

[Shadowman]

To me one building is an architectural shot if it fills the frame..

[Manfred M]

Ted - landscape photography is one area of photography where there is limited agreement on how to define it. The various photographic societies have put together some highly suspect definitions for purposes of photographic contests (i.e. it's not a landscape if there is any man-made structure in the image). Likewise there is a view that landscape shots cannot be made with a long focal length.

The altruistic me feels a good image is a good image and I don't particularly care how it is made or the elements that are contained in it. This applies to any landscapes image andin that definition I would include urban landscapes, as these can be quite compelling too and landscape shots that are primarily of large bodies of water.



This shot was made using a 125mm focal length (250mm FF equivalent) with a mFT camera. Looks like a landscape shot to me..

Based on some of the comments one sees on DPreview, I take many of the comments on that site with a large grain of salt (actually more likely those large blocks of salt put out for cows to lick on).

[Cogito]

This is portrait..




and this is landscape...

[Manfred M]

Old time photographers sometimes have problems with the current terminology of "portrait orientation" and "landscape orientation". I was taught to call these vertical and horizontal, as those were the positions that the easel holding the photographic paper were placed under the enlarger.

[Cogito]

Old time photographers sometimes have problems with the current terminology of "portrait orientation" and "landscape orientation". I was taught to call these vertical and horizontal, as those were the positions that the easel holding the photographic paper were placed under the enlarger.

My response was to, in a way, ridicule the actual discussion! IMHO, a bit pointless and meaningless. As Theresa May would say "Landscape means Landscape"

[xpatUSA]

Thanks to all so far, with the exception of the Gentleman from Fenland.

So a "landscape shot" could just as easily refer to the location of the camera, irrespective of the lens used? Just as a "street shot" could be of a single face in a crowd . .

[Manfred M]

My response was to, in a way, ridicule the actual discussion! IMHO, a bit pointless and meaningless. As Theresa May would say "Landscape means Landscape"

I understood that Tony, but I have seen arguments among photographers trying to classify / clarify definitions and get into really silly arguments that in the scheme of things seem to me to be unimportant, yet to them (at the time) it seemed to be the most important subject in the world. That is one of the reasons I don't enter contests; there are too many rules that constrain the photographer.

Back in the wet darkroom I used to crop, dodge, burn, make images lighter and darker, create images with more or less contrast, add vignettes and make perspective corrections as a matter of course. If I admit using these common (age old) techniques in the digital darkroom some people will jump all over me for "cheating".

[Manfred M]

Thanks to all so far, with the exception of the Gentleman from Fenland.

So a "landscape shot" could just as easily refer to the location of the camera, irrespective of the lens used? Just as a "street shot" could be of a single face in a crowd . .

Why not?

These definitions seem just as valid as many of the other ones that are thrown about. I've been told some of my "street shots" are not street photography, but rather "street portraits", whatever that is. Can one do street photography in places with no streets?

[xpatUSA]

So a "landscape shot" could just as easily refer to the location of the camera, irrespective of the lens used? Just as a "street shot" could be of a single face in a crowd . .

Why not?

These definitions seem just as valid as many of the other ones that are throw about. I've been told some of my "street shots" are not street photography, but rather "street portraits", whatever that is. Can one do street photography in places with no streets?

Thanks, Manfred. I've just been over to DPR and recanted to that effect!

[paintingwithlight]

Back in the wet darkroom I used to crop, dodge, burn, make images lighter and darker, create images with more or less contrast, add vignettes and make perspective corrections as a matter of course. If I admit using these common (age old) techniques in the digital darkroom some people will jump all over me for "cheating".

Manfred,

I am guilty of a different form of cheating. When I capture a scene better with my DSLR than my wife does with her P&S then she often ascribes the difference to my "fancy camera and Photoshop."

Michael

[rpcrowe]

I am more in tune with this definition...

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/scape
-scape
1.
a combining form extracted from landscape, denoting “an extensive view, scenery,” or “a picture or representation” of such a view, as specified by the initial element:
cityscape; moonscape; seascape.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2017.
Cite This Source

[Manfred M]

I am more in tune with this definition...

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/scape
-scape
1.
a combining form extracted from landscape, denoting “an extensive view, scenery,” or “a picture or representation” of such a view, as specified by the initial element:
cityscape; moonscape; seascape.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2017.
Cite This Source

Richard that definition is a little like reading a Microsoft software manual. 100% accurate, but not necessarily particularly useful.

[Mike Buckley]

a shot of just one butte out of several could still be called a "landscape" shot.

A butte is a comparatively large expanse of land, so I would feel very comfortable calling the image a landscape.

Having said that, labels are really unimportant to me; I couldn't care less which labels are applied to the image.

[xpatUSA]

Richard that definition is a little like reading a Microsoft software manual. 100% accurate, but not necessarily particularly useful.

Agreed. Definitely not loose enough for a photographic forum.

[xpatUSA]

A butte is a comparatively large expanse of land, so I would feel very comfortable calling the image a landscape.

Unlike for example a shot of our planet taken from the moon. Or a boulder on the said butte shot from like 6ft.

It's amazing how we photographers twist and turn to avoid thinking about angular measure, especially angle of view. Somehow angles get replaced by discussion of size and distance. Therefore a butte becomes a "landscape" simply by virtue of it's [edit]size[/edit].

Having said that, labels are really unimportant to me; I couldn't care less which labels are applied to the image.

Certainly taxes the brain a lot less, leaving one free to spend more time in the Real World taking pictures . . .

[William W]

What really gets me antsy is when LENSES are referred to as "Landscape Lenses" ... of course what's worse are "Portrait Lenses".

Oh - the original question - I think that all the images in the OP of that thread are indeed the genre of "Landscape Photography"

WW

[george013]

What really gets me antsy is when LENSES are referred to as "Landscape Lenses" ... of course what's worse are "Portrait Lenses".

Oh - the original question - I think that all the images in the OP of that thread are indeed the genre of "Landscape Photography"

WW

I could think of a portrait lens as a lens that gives me a long enough distance to the person that 1) make both the model and the photographer gives a not to close feeling and 2) the distance doesn't cause to much differences in magnification between nose and ears by example.

A landscape lens, I don't know what to think about it.

I don't think there's much more as that Gentleman from Frenland described, meaning the orientation. And if your subject is a landscape, well than it's a landscape.

Ted seems to have a tendency toward selective reading. From his own link http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dict.../english/scape

used to form nouns referring to a wide view of a place, often one represented in a picture:
landscape
seascape
cityscape

A wide view doesn't mean wide angle of view.

Going further in that link

landscapenoun us ​ uk ​ /ˈlænd.skeɪp/
​

B1 [ C ] a large area of countryside, especially in relation to its appearance:
a rural/barren landscape
The landscape is dotted with the tents of campers and hikers.
The cathedral dominates the landscape for miles around.
​

[ C or U ] a view or picture of the countryside, or the art of making such pictures:
a watercolour landscape
J.M.W. Turner is one of the best-known British landscape painters.

No sign of angles.

George

[Donald]

There's not a lot written on the subject, but it is out there - 'Long lens landscape photography'. Some of my best landscape images have been made with the 100-400 f4.5-5.6 L IS MkII on board.