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Often, when looking at colorful photographs from different parts of the world, it is hard to believe that these landscapes really exist. And therefore, I really want to visit them all and see for myself that they are really so beautiful.

website collected for you the most impressive places on the planet. You might want to rethink your vacation plans!

Wave, Arizona, USA

Uyuni Salt Flat, Bolivia

The Uyuni Salt Flats is a dry salt lake in the south of the Altiplano desert plain, Bolivia. Its inner part is covered with a layer of table salt 2-8 meters thick. During the rainy season, the salt marsh is covered with a thin layer of water and turns into the world's largest mirror surface.

Fly Geyser, Nevada, USA

Fly is a man-made geyser located in northwestern Nevada. It appeared thanks to the intervention of people: in 1916, a well was drilled in these places for a well, but a geothermal pocket was accidentally punched. In 1964, boiling water began to penetrate the surface, creating an unusual landscape from minerals dissolving in water.

Hitachi Seaside Park, Japan

Hitachi Seaside National Park in eastern Japan is an amazing example of landscape design. It is known for its colorful change of seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter have their own flower beds. By the end of spring, millions of American forget-me-nots bloom in the park.

Red Beach, Panjin, China

The beach near the city of Panjin is world famous for its unusual red color. The fact is that the banks of the Liaohe River are strewn with seaweed. From April to May, they are of the usual green color, and only by September, dying, gradually become bright red.

Lake in Glacier National Park, USA

The lake of divine beauty is located in the Rocky Mountains in the US state of Montana, on the border with Canada.

Giant's Road, Northern Ireland

The Giant's Road is about 40,000 interconnected basalt columns that appeared after an ancient volcanic eruption. The tops of the columns start at the foot of the cliff and gradually disappear under the surface of the sea. The tallest of the columns is about 12 meters high.

Rainbow Mountains, China

100 million years ago, there was a huge pool on the site of the mountains, which gradually dried up due to high temperatures. The sediments that remained at the bottom of the pool, when in contact with air, turned into interesting red and copper colors.

Maldives

The Republic of Maldives has more than a thousand paradise islands scattered in the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. Each of the islands can be called a small miracle that has preserved the original freshness and purity of nature.

Badab-e-Surt, Iran

Badab-e-Surt is a natural wonder located in northern Iran. This place consists of stepped terraces made of a special breed - travertine. The orange color of the terrace was obtained due to the large amount of iron oxide.

Giant Buddha, China

The Maitreya Buddha statue in Leshan, China is one of the tallest Buddha statues on Earth. Its height is 71 meters, head height is almost 15 meters, shoulder span is almost 30 meters, finger length is 8 meters, toe length is 1.6 meters, nose length is 5.5 meters.

Lake Natron, Tanzania

Natron is a salty and alkaline lake located in northern Tanzania. Its depth does not exceed 3 meters. Due to the microorganisms that live in the lake, the crust of salt that covers it sometimes turns red and pink.

Antelope Canyon, Arizona, USA

The canyon was so named due to the reddish-red walls, reminiscent of the skin of an antelope. It is a gigantic gap in the sandy rocks that arose under the action of water and wind.

Rice fields, Indonesia

Rice terraces in Bali, Indonesia, amaze with their picturesqueness. It would seem that they are simple rice sprouts, but how artistically planted. No wonder the rice fields and terraces on this island attract artists and gather tourists.

Cappadocia, Turkey

Darvaza, Turkmenistan

I tried to summarize my experience in landscape photography and give the most important tips for beginner photographers. I hope my tips will help you learn how to shoot a very beautiful, memorable landscape.

Landscape photography allows you to save memories of those rare moments, helps you mentally transport yourself to your favorite places. But it's one thing to shoot for yourself, and another thing is to convey the atmosphere of the place to people who have never been there. This is not for everyone.

We are used to living in cities, among concrete and glass. Many only occasionally manage to escape into nature, enjoy clean air, clear water and piercing silence. And that's why every date with nature seems special, you want to remember it for a long time.

1. Plan ahead

Strangely enough, the work on creating a beautiful landscape begins long before you press the shutter button - it begins with planning a trip. Wherever you are going to spend your vacation, in the Altai mountains or in the middle lane on the lake, collect as much information as possible about this place in advance. Analyze satellite images and topographic maps - for example, you can use them to understand which mountain peaks will be highlighted at sunset or dawn. Find photos taken by other people in the area - even if they are taken with a soap dish, this will help you better imagine the location of the future shooting. Select the features of the area that are most interesting to you - it can be a beautiful mountain peak, or an unusual tree on the river bank - and concentrate your attention on these objects.

Lake Transverse Multa, Gorny Altai, mid-September.

2. Explore the area

Surely, many of you have found yourself in a situation where, at the sight of the colors of a flaring sunset, a person begins to fuss and tries to take at least something to capture the rapidly escaping light. In such a situation, you are doomed to failure. To avoid this, devote all your free time to exploring the area. If you are relaxing by a lake, go around the lake and look for places of interest on its shore (for example, rocks covered with variegated lichen or a stream flowing out of the lake).

Take a walk through the forest or along the river, climb higher up the slope - somewhere you will definitely find something unusual and beautiful. During these exploration walks, take test shots so that later in the evening you can review them in a calm atmosphere and choose the most interesting places for shooting. And when once again the sky lights up with sunset colors, you must stand at the point you have chosen in advance with the camera at the ready.

I found this vantage point after several hours of exploring the area.

3. Landscape is, first of all, light

Most amateurs prefer to shoot at noon when the sunlight is very harsh. In this case, the photos, as a rule, turn out flat, with dirty colors and excessive contrast. Meanwhile, the sunlight is most beautiful and soft during the regime time - at sunrise and sunset, plus or minus an hour. Try to shoot during normal hours, and you will see how your photos will sparkle with completely different colors.

During exploration walks, use a compass to figure out where the sun will rise and set - think ahead about where it is best to shoot sunrise and sunset. The exact time and place (azimuth) of sunrise and sunset can be found, for example, using The Photographer’s Ephemeris program (http://photoephemeris.com).

A dawn of rare beauty, taken by me in complete solitude - the rest of the tourists were sleeping at that time. When they woke up, they saw only the sky covered with gray clouds.

4. Photo equipment

Always use a tripod. If you have the choice to bring a tripod or an extra lens, choose a tripod. A tripod can turn the simplest camera into a powerful tool that allows you to shoot landscapes in almost any conditions. It is desirable that the tripod allows you to install the camera at any height from 20 cm to 1.5-2 m. The weight of the tripod is not so important if you are not going to shoot in a storm.

I advise you to use a wide-angle lens, it is most in demand when shooting landscapes. For example, if you're shooting with a 1.5 crop factor DSLR, it could be a 10-20 or 12-24 lens; respectively, for full-frame cameras - 16-35 or 17-40.

A tripod is a landscape photographer's most powerful weapon.

5. Shooting from a low position

If you find an interesting foreground to shoot (for example, flowers or moss-covered rocks), try lowering your camera on a tripod. This will focus on the foreground and make the photo more expressive.

Shooting from a low position (40 cm above the ground) made it possible to focus on the flowers by visually increasing their size in the photo.

6. Depth of field

In a landscape, all parts of the photo should be sharp, from the grass in the foreground to the snowy mountain peaks in the background. Relatively large apertures, from f/8 to f/16, are typically used to achieve the desired depth of field. The larger the aperture number, the greater the depth of field. However, it should be remembered that at large apertures (f/16 and above), sharpness can deteriorate significantly due to diffraction.

The f/13 aperture made it possible to sharpen almost the entire scene from rocks to mountains.

7. Dynamic range

Dynamic range (DD) is the difference between the brightness of the lightest and darkest parts of the scene. When shooting sunsets and sunrises, the camera often cannot cope with a large DD scene, and white “overexposures” and black “underexposures” may appear in the picture. The easiest way to avoid such problems is not to shoot in backlight. For example, instead of shooting the sunset itself, try turning the camera 90 degrees and shooting mountains illuminated by the last rays of the sun.

The DD of this scene is much less than that of the sunset, which was blazing at that time behind my back.

8. Volume

A good landscape should have volume. Our eyes always see a 3D picture because we have two eyes. But the camera has only one "eye", so in order for the photo to become voluminous, you need to make an effort. The sense of volume in a photograph is created by tonal and spatial perspective. Volume can be enhanced by light. The greatest volume is achieved with side and back lighting of the landscape. Try to choose a shooting point in such a way that there are both close objects (foreground) and distant objects (background) in the photo. Ideally, if there is a smooth transition between different shots, for example, a stream flowing from the background to the foreground.

Spatial perspective makes the photo more voluminous. Sunlight, illuminating the ridge at an acute angle, exposes its texture.

9. Get up early, stay up late

Perhaps the most important piece of advice. Get up an hour before dawn and go shoot regardless of the weather. I know how difficult it can be to get up at 4 in the morning and get out of a warm sleeping bag into the cold air, but believe me, it's worth it. Similarly, an hour before sunset, go shoot regardless of the weather. Remember that gorgeous sunsets with rainbows happen only after the rain, and in order to take them off, you need to get pretty wet.

It rained an hour before sunrise. It was hard to imagine that literally in half an hour a doomsday of incredible beauty would break out over the lake.

10. Be patient

Beautiful light happens infrequently, and in order to wait for it, you have to be patient. No amount of advice will allow you to create dozens of beautiful landscapes a month. Even the best landscape photographers take an average of 5-10 days to complete a single shot - this time is spent waiting for the light. This should be taken into account when planning a trip - if you stay in some place for less than a few days, then the probability of taking a beautiful shot in this place is close to zero.

Lake Taiga Eye, Ergaki Natural Park

P.S. Ask your questions in the comments..

At first glance, the title sounds absurd and meaningless. It would seem, what could be easier? He came to the shooting location, set up a tripod, took out the camera and shoot for yourself! But, conducting photo tours, I was convinced that the problem still exists. If not a problem, then a topic for conversation for sure. So, in the fresh wake of the last two photo tours in the Carpathians, I want to share some of my thoughts on the topic.

The first thing I encountered was the inability to "see" and "search" the frame, as well as "freezing" in one place. I observed a situation when novice photographers, having come to the shooting site, simply do not know what to shoot. On the one hand, it seems to be natural - the area is unfamiliar, but on the other hand, there are so many new and interesting things around that the eyes run wide. In fact, the problem is somewhat different and now we will try to figure it out. The situation is something like this: you bring a group, for example, to a sunrise shoot, say: “That’s it, let’s unpack, get tripods and cameras, we’ll shoot here at dawn”, show certain angles, a short briefing and ... after a while you notice that the participants stand still, limiting themselves exclusively to those angles that you have already shown, making a bunch of exactly the same shots. Everyone shoots the same thing. You have to show other angles or objects to shoot again (literally: "Look back / left, etc.") and ... history repeats itself again.
Meanwhile, shooting a landscape involves a constant search - searching for locations, searching for angles, objects in the foreground, waiting for optimal light, shooting time, etc. You have to constantly move around the area. It is necessary to be clearly aware: the shots will not come by themselves, they must first be found, seen with the eyes, understood mentally and then only captured with a camera (the latter is the simplest and easiest). The above, of course, does not mean that you need to rush around the area, thoughtlessly firing bursts to the right and left, clogging the flash drive with a bunch of frames, which will then be disgusting to look at ... I think everyone had cases when, having come home, we begin to view the footage and we wonder: where is all the beauty that we recently saw? Why don't the captured footage convey it?
Therefore, upon arriving at the shooting location, it is advisable to calmly look around, evaluate the light, the direction of sunrise / sunset, select objects that can be used as foreground, middle, far, etc. It is very important to choose your rhythm of shooting, optimally moving around the area in search of a good composition and the light you need, and not hanging for a long time at one tree / haystack / stone / house, etc. So you can make N-th number of different frames in one exit. Also, when shooting in a group, try not to shoot from the same position as the rest of the participants - look for your unique shots. Why do you need a "thousand-first" picture of the same house/tree/haystack?!
Advice: do not stand still, choose the optimal rhythm of movement for yourself and constantly explore the area. Cadres do not come by themselves, you need to "hunt" for them.
For example, this shot had to be hunted in the literal sense of the word, constantly moving in an attempt to catch a horse in the frame:

An exception: you already know the area well, have a clear idea of ​​what exactly you want to shoot, mentally build a composition by placing objects in the places you need and just wait for the right light or other conditions to realize your creative idea. As an example, I can give this frame:

I knew exactly the time and place where the moon should appear, mentally imagined this frame and all that remained was to arrive at the place, set up the tripod and wait for the necessary condition - the rising of the moon.

The second mistake of a novice landscape photographer is focusing on shooting only in one direction - the direction of sunrise or sunset. Yes, as a rule, it is in the place of dawn / sunset that the colors are most vivid and expressive. This is all understandable, predictable, but not axiomatic. In practice, the most beautiful light is far from always, the brightest and most beautiful colors are observed clearly in the east or west during dawn / sunset. Often the opposite happens. Therefore, during the morning or evening shooting, do not forget to look back.
Here are some examples of photos taken with the above in mind. That morning there was an absolutely clear cloudless sky, so the dawn itself was nothing interesting - well, the sun came out from behind the mountains, so what? But the most interesting thing was observed from the opposite side - the rising sun beautifully illuminated the peaks of the mountain range, giving them a yellow-red hue:

Another example, taken at sunset, the sun was behind me to my left, illuminating the clouds with pre-sunset rays:

Advice: do not forget to turn your head back from time to time, look around! Anything happens, so we often turn our heads and look around! Nature is full of surprises! :)
An exception: again, you may have some special plan and shooting task and you are little dependent on specific conditions. For example, you intentionally want to include the sun in the frame, shoot objects in backlight. Let's say that in this picture, the presence of the sun is simply necessary, because. "makes" the atmosphere of the morning, fills the picture with light:

A similar situation, trees in backlight and fog look just great:

The next problem I call "limited panoramic vision." Often, for landscape photography, we use a wide-angle lens and limit ourselves to it. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, but by doing so we limit ourselves, narrow the horizon of our vision. Try using a telephoto lens instead of a wide-angle lens and look through the viewfinder. You will be surprised to find that a well-known landscape contains new interesting facets that were simply lost before.
Here is the slope of the Carpathians blooming with forbs, shot with wide-angle optics:


and here is the same slope shot on a lens with a focal length of 200 mm .:


Completely different shots of the same place! And just enough to "narrow" the angle of view!
Advice: do not be lazy, alternate lenses with different focal lengths while shooting - this will expand new horizons, show new angles!
An exception: you know exactly what and how you want to shoot, hence the intelligent choice of a lens with the appropriate focal length.
It seems to be everything this time. :)
As always, I will be grateful for the constructive dialogue, additions and wishes expressed in the comments.

previous articles.

by Sophie Ouch

For many beginners, learning to photograph begins with mastering landscape photography. Maybe this is due to the silence and slowness, which is conducive to better mastering the technique, understanding the exposure in photography and mastering photography lessons on how to photograph correctly - the same landscape.

Photography lessons are varied, tips can be found for every taste and preparedness. But it has long been known that there is never enough information, it never turns out to be superfluous for neophytes, and "repetition is the mother of learning", so we remember the important!

Tips for landscape photography, or How to photograph nature correctly

1. Making the Most of Depth of Field

Marc Adamus

While photographers sometimes want to be more creative and experiment with shallow depth of field, it's still a classic landscape technique to have most of the image in focus. The easiest way to get more DOF is to use the lowest possible f-stop available for your compact or lens. The smaller the aperture, the greater the depth of field of the image.

However, be aware that a smaller aperture requires more time or a higher ISO. And sometimes both at the same time.

2. Use a tripod

Leif Erik Smith

A mandatory attribute in the arsenal of a landscape photographer is. You may need slow shutter speeds to compensate for the selected small aperture, and therefore additional camera stabilization. Not with every shutter speed, shooting handheld, you can get technically perfect shots. A tripod will be even more useful when the photographer uses a remote control to release the shutter to further stabilize the camera.

3. Look for the semantic center of the composition

Mitchell Krog

Every photograph needs a visual center of composition. Landscape shots are no exception, because when shooting nature, the lack of a semantic point results in a boring and rather empty shot, in which, as they say, "there is nothing to catch the eye."

pkarwski

Anything can be the focus - a building or structure, an interestingly shaped tree, a boulder or a mountain peak. Just remember to keep track not only of focus, but also of where you have a significant object. Although the reference rule of thirds is violated periodically, no one has canceled it yet!

4. Think Foreground

Daniel Rericha

One of the elements that helps your landscape take shape is a shaped foreground. Place your meaning points on the front of the picture, and you can convey the depth of the image.

5. Don't forget to turn on the sky

Trevor Cole

Another almost inseparable element of the answer to the question of how to shoot a landscape is the sky and its reflection in the water. The secret of landscape photography in most cases is that the sky or foreground dominates the picture. Look at your images, if they are not, then most likely they are considered boring and of little interest.

Ryan Dyar

If during your photo session the sky turned out to be uninteresting, do not let it prevail - move the horizon line to the upper third of the picture, first make sure that the photo does not lose even more from this.

Andrei Baciu

But when the sky is full of dramatic clouds or littered with out-of-character hues, airspace can be your ally. Give him more space in your picture, and you will see how winning such a deviation from the rules can be.

Remember filters. Using polarizers can add color and contrast to a photo.

6. Operate the lines!

myredcar

The most important question that landscape photographers usually ask themselves is: "Will the viewer see the picture in full, as I see it?"

There are many ways to convey the natural beauty of nature through static image capture. To do this, there is a technique by which active lines are included in the composition of the image. Due to them, the photographer can redirect the viewer's gaze from one point of the frame to another, rather than create a kind of closed space, "looping".

The use of lines gives a certain algorithm and adds scale and volume to the photo image. The lines themselves can be an attraction and create their own "patterns" in the photo.

Danskie Dijamco

7. Fix the movement!

Most people, when thinking about landscape photography, most often imagine a calm and passive picture. However, the landscape is different from the landscape, and you can convey the movement (of the same water, for example), which will fill the picture with dynamics and create a mood that is interesting to many viewers who will be happy to admire not only relaxing landscapes, but also consider the riot of the elements and the fury of nature.

Andrea Pozzi

For example, try to "catch" the breath of wind in the trees, the movement of waves on the beach, the stirring of water flowing under a waterfall, fix in the dynamics of flying birds and floating clouds above your head.

Carol Dorion

"Locking" means that the photographer must use slower shutter speeds (sometimes on the order of a few seconds). Of course, high shutter speeds will cause more light to enter the camera's photosensitive element, but to properly use this fact, you have options: choosing an aperture value or taking pictures at the beginning of the day or in the evening, when in principle there is less light outside.

8. Work in tandem with weather and time

The golden rule of landscape photography is: "A scene can change drastically at any given time, depending on the weather."

Andrei Baciu

Many aspiring photographers tend to go on a photo walk on a sunny day because they think that this is the best time to create photo masterpieces. In fact, a cloudy day or even a rainy and thundery day, in addition to the possibility of getting the camera wet and feet wet, gives the widest opportunities to get beautiful photos filled with mood and ominous overtones.

Bill Church

How to shoot a landscape in such weather? Look for storms, wind, fog, dramatic clouds, sun through dark dark skies, rainbows, sunsets and sunrises, and work with these changes in weather and conditions rather than waiting for the next sunny day with dull blue skies.

Greg Gibbs

And another wonderful piece of advice from a professional landscape photographer: "Never shoot during the day. There is no duller photo. Your golden time is at dawn or dusk. There is no better light when landscapes come alive."

9. Praise for the horizon

Christian Bothner

The oldest advice, but it is good because it does not lose its relevance today. Before finally pressing the camera shutter, check the horizon line.

It should not divide the frame clearly in half, it should not be tilted, it should not be completely absent from the landscape shot. Of course, rules are there to be broken, but in the case of the horizon, the rule of thirds works like never before.

Tramont_ana

10. Change your point of view!

Even when there are vast expanses of unprecedented beauty before your eyes and it seems that you just need to raise the camera and a beautiful image will appear in it by itself ... stop. And think. Look at the area through the lens, turn back and forth, change the angle, shift the horizon line, or try to include additional elements in the composition.

Auttapon Nunti

Do not rush to press the shutter button, you always have time to do it when photographing a landscape!

Publication date: 10.07.2015

There is a stereotype that for good landscape photos you need to go somewhere far away, to the mountains or exotic countries. And therefore, they say, landscape photography is a genre that only avid travelers can shoot in.

In this article I will try to show that great shots can be taken even in the backyard of your summer cottage. It is enough to be more attentive to the environment.

Photographers often have the illusion that it is more interesting and easier to take pictures somewhere in distant countries with different nature, other landscapes and people than at home. Having traveled a couple of times on a trip, you will see that everything is not so simple. Any environment (country, type of landscape) has its own shooting challenges that you won't know about until you get there.

Watch nature. Be out of town more often. Everywhere in the world there are moments when nature is especially beautiful. According to my personal observations, for Central Russia this is June and September-October. June landscapes are adorned with many flowers, at this time you can often see beautiful fogs. The autumn months are decorated with yellow foliage.

Observe the nature of your region. Surely she has her own characteristics that can be effectively conveyed in photographs.

Go for reconnaissance. Having chosen a country walk, do not rush to take decisive pictures in the next few minutes. Find some beautiful places, favorable shooting points, think over the angle. It can even be the nearest meadow or river bank to your country house, places with a slight difference in elevation, forest edges. Think about what time of day and what weather this place will look best.

In clear weather, you can get great shots, but the sky can turn out to be “flat”. Cloudy days are the most boring to photograph, but on days when the sunlight peeks out from behind the clouds, you can get expressive pictures.

Regime time. The most favorable lighting occurs during the regime time: early in the morning or late in the evening. If you choose the right shooting point, angle and time, you can effectively capture the moment of sunrise or sunset in the frame. It is worth noting that such shots will require you to have a very accurate exposure and the ability to fit into the dynamic range of the camera or expand it.

Tripod and wide angle lens. These are the things without which serious landscape shooting is unthinkable. With a wide-angle lens, you can include the entire landscape in the frame, not just fragments of it.

For Nikon cameras with an APS-C sensor, you can recommend the Nikon AF-S 10-24mm f / 3.5-4.5G ED DX Nikkor lens. For full-frame cameras, the Nikon AF-S 18-35mm f / 3.5-4.5G ED Nikkor and Nikon AF-S 16-35mm f / 4G ED VR Nikkor are optimal.

A tripod will allow you to take sharp shots at slow shutter speeds. And long exposures will have to be used if you take pictures during regime time.

Oddly enough, telephoto lenses can also be used when shooting landscapes. They allow you to "snatch" the distant details of the landscape, to express the perspective in the frame in a different way. This shot was taken with a Nikon 70-200mm f/4G ED AF-S VR Nikkor telephoto lens.

Do not be afraid to include "traces of civilization" in the frame. Practice shows that such objects can fit well into the surrounding landscape: village houses, bridges ... You may be able to find a windmill or a windmill for shooting.

For example, in this shot I included an abandoned current building and a mobile tower:

Look for hidden places. It is not necessary to look for incredible landscapes and panoramas. You can find miniature, cozy corners. Perhaps only you will know about them. The edge of the forest, a shady alley, a river bank - these places are also interesting to shoot!

... All frames for this article were filmed in the Moscow region and nearby areas. As you can see, there are many picturesque places in the native land that can be beautifully captured in pictures. The main thing is the desire to find the unusual nearby!