Special moments in landscape photography

Through the cairn - Hilde Sordal (500px)

Landscape photography is one of the oldest disciplines of photography. It has an artistic but also a documentary touch. On one hand landscape photography is about capturing the moment of a wide landscape combining uniqueness of landscape and topography with light and weather conditions, and capturing this unique moment at the right exposure.

Uniqueness can be added by searching for special perspective, special elements, or special landmarks in order to add another dimension to the landscape image.

An example is the image on the left by Hilde Sordal. The stone sculpture in the foreground adds some living, man built, element to the landscape scenery. This still being a static situation, captured at the right moment under sunset conditions is nothing special yet. But getting the last rays of the sun for that particular day shining directly through an almost invisible pinhole across that stone sculpture adds some dynamics and uniqueness of that very moment to the image.

To capture such an exceptional landscape image it not only needs the eye for the landscape, but also the understanding for the uniqueness of a very short moment which will not happen again for quite some time if not captured in this very fraction of a second.