Very beautiful landscapes. Pictures of magical nature that make you feel warm and happy. Don't try to "paint" the landscape with your camera
It’s already cold in Volgograd in November, so I wanted to go back closer to summer. I started looking for work on the Internet using the following queries: seasonal work in the south in winter. I found an article about picking tangerines in Abkhazia. The work promised to be unpaid, but tasty. You can eat tangerines for the year ahead and stock up on vitamins. Found it in contact
Kyrgyzstan
In eastern Kazakhstan, just before the border with Kyrgyzstan, there are stunning landscapes, meadows, rivers and mountains in the distance. The places are worth taking a walk here and admiring the nature. The Karkyra border post is the most deserted on my trip. Here I saw only 3 people crossing the border. Two of them drove me to Kyrgyzstan. And I tried to drive in the opposite direction
Kazakhstan
You can only cross the Russian-Kazakh border “Karauzek” by car. They won’t let you through on foot, and the distance between our and the Kazakh posts is 10 km, it’s a bit far to walk. Cars wait at customs for half an hour to 3 hours, according to travelers. If you are on foot, you need to find a car willing to give you a ride. So I did -
Hitchhiking in the Volgograd and Astrakhan regions
My main goal of this trip was to visit the Charyn Canyon in Kazakhstan. On the Internet, I accidentally saw a picture of this canyon with the caption: Did you think this was the Grand Canyon in the USA? And this is actually Kazakhstan! I decided to definitely see this beauty with my own eyes. With the money I earned in Karelia in the summer I bought a tent, a sleeping bag,
Summer 2018 in Karelia on rafting
The summer of 2018 in Karelia turned out to be warm. They even note here that we only have summer once every three years. 2016 was rainy, 2017 was cold, and 2018 was dry and hot. This has its pros and cons. The rivers have become shallow, and you can go around them on catamarans and kayaks
Work as a water tourism instructor in the Urals
It's been a while since I wrote anything, a long time ago. And it’s not surprising, because who would be interested in watching me hang on a cable while working as an elevator installer? But that was in February and March. In April and May, I found a “more interesting” job, but in the wilderness, where the Internet is so fast, as if I had returned to the days of dialup Internet
Altai Republic
In the fall, I don’t want to sit at home and watch out the window as people jump over puddles, so I decided to go to a place where it’s frosty all winter, and, as usual, away from my native land, to see our vast homeland. I had two options: go to Kaliningrad or Altai. With Kaliningrad
Kizhi Island. June 2017
In the summer of 2017, I had the opportunity to visit Kizhi Island. But not for free, as I usually like. I had to pay 7,000 rubles myself for 4 days. But considering that this amount included food, accommodation and travel to the island, it is not so expensive. As you probably know, I work in the summer
First time in Crimea
In 2014, I already had thoughts of visiting Crimea. Then I earned 1,500 rubles a day on my sites. And this money would be enough for me to travel around the peninsula, if not by car, then by bicycle with a tent. But search engine algorithms have changed, income from my sites has fallen and
The famous American photographer Ansel Adams, who became famous throughout the world for his black and white landscape photographs, once said: “ Landscape photography- this is the main test for a photographer and often his main disappointment.” And this is, perhaps, the honest truth. How often do we, noticing a beautiful view, think that all we have to do is simply press the shutter button, capture what we see - and the result will be a masterpiece. However, a masterpiece most often does not work out, because for a landscape photographer it is not enough to just be a mirror for nature, he must learn to express himself through the landscape.
Photographer Declan O'Neill shared his 10 secrets for creating expressive landscape photographs.
1. What can you say about the landscape through photography?
It takes time to read and understand the landscape. You just have to stand and watch how the light changes contours and shapes. As the sun moves, forests and rivers are illuminated every minute in a completely new way and sometimes completely transformed. Light creates its own mood and emotion in the landscape. The landscape can be compared to a huge canvas on which light paints its own complex and amazing picture.
In this case, photography is about capturing how light transforms a landscape. Therefore, the decision about what to photograph and what composition to build should be dictated by the question: “Does this photograph say something about the light and landscape?” This simple question helps you reject many unsuccessful and empty compositions and choose the one that is ideal.
2. Learn to get up early!
If I have a choice between sunrise and sunset, I always choose sunrise. I have nothing against sunset photos, but I think it's hard to add something new and original to the thousands of sunset photos I've already seen. Dawn light, on the contrary, always brings surprises! It is very difficult to predict exactly what you will get while you stand and wait in the pre-dawn darkness.
It's a bit like photographing wild animals - because you're equally likely to get the shot you've always wanted or get nothing. Dawn light can be completely different - from smoky pink to warm yellow.
Keep an eye on the weather forecasts - because if you're lucky enough to live in areas with cold nights and clear skies, you can sometimes catch some amazing cloud and haze effects that are sure to clear by the time the rest of the world wakes up.
3. Imperfection is good.
One of the main challenges of landscape photography is that you have to deal with huge dynamic range. At the same time, it becomes very difficult to control the balance of lighting in the frame. ND filters sometimes help, but are often inconvenient or inappropriate for a particular place and time. Sometimes you have to give up shooting altogether because the dynamic range is too large.
You can, of course, use HDR technologies, but they most often give themselves away and can violate the integrity and honesty of the photo. Many photographs can be light balanced when processed on a computer. However, sometimes a photograph benefits from the inability to capture the full dynamic range. Most likely, such a photograph will not be accepted for participation in various competitions, and there will most likely be areas in it from which it will be impossible to isolate at least some details. Perhaps technically the photograph will turn out to be very poor, but a black silhouette against a light background very often attracts attention in an unimaginable way and seems to invite you to take a closer look at yourself. Sometimes you have to give up the opportunity to capture a perfectly lit photo in order to draw attention to the potential of the subject itself.
4. Look back!
It’s so easy to see the winning shot and forget to look around. When watching a sunset or sunrise, people usually point their lenses towards the sun and again take thousands of pictures, millions of which they have already seen from their friends or on the Internet. However, often it is enough just to look back to see something completely new and missed by everyone! After all, instead of photographing the rising or setting sun, you can capture what it illuminates at that moment.
The obvious shot is not always the best one. Learn to look more carefully.
5. Use software for planning.
There are many programs that can help you with outdoor photography. Perhaps one of the most useful of them is The Photographers Ephemeris. In short, it allows you to choose any place on the planet - and shows you where the sun will be on any day, at any time. specific time. This way, you can choose the best day and time to shoot in a certain location and choose a specific shooting location with the best lighting. If you're serious about landscape photography, this is a must-have tool.
Another tool that can help you a lot is a terrain map. A good map will help you predict what the landscape will look like and give you some idea of what's in your field of vision. Knowing how to understand these detailed topographic maps will help you save a lot of time and not have to drive around looking for that perfect shooting spot!
6. Equipment is not that important.
The best equipment does not guarantee you the best photos, just like best pen won't automatically allow you to write that great novel you've always dreamed of. Equipment is just a device that allows you to convey to others what is in your head. If you have your own opinion and if you have something to say (see point 1) - then you can use anything, from a smartphone to Nikon D800.
Remember that you are the one who builds the composition of your future photo, and the camera only captures it. More megapixels or a faster lens will never help you create a more expressive and full composition.
7. Don't try to "paint" the landscape with your camera.
On the Internet, photographs that have undergone extreme post-processing or were created using ND filters that make water look like smooth silk have become increasingly fashionable lately. Why not let nature express itself naturally? Believe me, she can do this perfectly without using any filters. The same goes for post-processing. If used in moderation, it helps to emphasize the natural beauty of nature, if overdone, we are already beginning to change the landscape and paint it completely different from what it really was.
Real photographs always leave their mark on our consciousness and subconscious. This is why highly photoshopped, idealized images of landscapes often leave us indifferent. They tell a fictional story, not real story. We immediately notice the falseness of the orange sky and the oversaturated color of the grass. Photographs can be metaphors, but they must be metaphors that appear in the viewer's head, not in the photographer's imagination.
If you still want to convey your vision of what the landscape looked like, perhaps you should try your hand at drawing?
8. Bad weather- it's good weather.
Clouds and rain are not the most inspiring weather conditions, but they bring with them opportunities far more interesting than any cloudless day. It takes patience and optimism to walk around with a camera in the rain all day, but more often than not, you will be rewarded. If you look around carefully, you will certainly find amazing shots created by clouds and rain!
- genre fine arts, the main task of which is to display the surrounding nature both in its original form and in one modified by man to one degree or another. Since photography is one of the fine arts, landscape photography fully corresponds to this definition. The main visual center of landscape photography is nature in all its manifestations.
Of course, landscape as a genre appeared long before the invention of photography - in painting. And honed over centuries artistic media landscape images formed a row necessary conditions, mandatory for this genre of photography. Linear perspective , tonal (aerial) perspective, optical perspective,frame composition , light space And color - these are the main characteristics of landscape photography, capable of not only very accurately conveying the state of the surrounding nature at a certain point in time, but also highlighting semantic center image without the use of additional manipulation techniques. And despite the fact that in landscape photography the presence of people or animals in the frame is allowed, they are clearly assigned the role of staffage - an element of the landscape that exists to enliven the image and plays a secondary role in this image.
At its core, landscape photography is documentary photography about nature. According to the type of space depicted, landscape photography can be terrestrial, water, astronomical and meteorological. Landscape photography depicts landscape, topography and vegetation and is both rural and urban.
Water landscape (seascape, marina) is an image of the water (sea) element.
Astronomical landscape photography depicts the heavens (stars, constellations, Sun, Moon),
and meteorological - weather and precipitation (fog, rain, clouds, tornado, etc.).
According to the way of depicting space, landscape photography can be chamber and panoramic. Camera photography in this case does not imply a narrow circle of viewers, but expresses purely technical characteristics- a small, narrow viewing angle of the depicted space.
Panoramic landscape photography is the absolute opposite - it is a photograph, the viewing angle of which can often exceed 180 degrees.
According to the degree of perception by the viewer, the landscape can, by analogy with music, be minor or major. Tragic or solemn. Sad or cheerful. In solving this problem, the photographer comes to the aid of color theory, namely one of its sections - psychology of color. Knowing what colors and how they affect the viewer’s consciousness, the photographer can adjust color balance of the composition landscape to achieve a specific result. At the same time, in a landscape, cold shades cannot always create an atmosphere of hostility, and warm shades can create an atmosphere of friendliness. Small colored vegetation against the backdrop of black thunderclouds looks defenseless, and the picture as a whole evokes a feeling of anxiety, while cold Elbrus evokes awe and delight in its grandeur.
Of course, several of the listed natural spaces and states can easily overlap in one picture at the same time, but in this case it is important for the landscape photographer to decide what exactly in this picture is semantic center, and select this center using visual arts — prospects, compositions, Sveta, colors.
If there is no such center, then landscape photography is purely aesthetic, narrative-specific in nature and is used for decorative, scientific or journalistic purposes. Landscape photography belongs precisely to the category of aesthetic perception - plein air- a true depiction of nature’s colorful richness of color changes in natural conditions under the influence of sunlight and atmosphere.
If there is still a semantic center in landscape photography, then such a landscape will be charged with emotional-dramatic (or epic) energy and will acquire the features artistic landscape photography.
Along with mandatory conditions creating landscape photography, there are a number of conditions that are specific in nature - dynamism , angle , detail. Considering that photography is a static and silent form of fine art, it is in landscape photography that it is most difficult to convey certain atmospheric phenomena with great accuracy. How to show strong wind in a photo of a desert? How can mountain giants be depicted more majestic? It is in these cases that a landscape photographer is saved by knowledge about the dynamics of the frame, the shooting point and the angle.
Has become widespread nowadays tourist landscape photography. Although not essentially a separate genre, tourist landscape photography has become very popular due to both the availability of photographic equipment and the opportunity to visit the most remote corners of our planet.
The main feature of landscape photography is its accessibility. It does not require any scenery or staging tricks; it does not depend on the mood of the model or the preferences of the customer. It depends on the surrounding nature and weather conditions. And in this sense landscape photography unique. Whether it’s a park or an alley within the city, or maybe a mountain range or the quiet expanse of a lake beyond its borders - wherever you are, on vacation or on a business trip, in your own country or abroad, nature is present everywhere - amazing a natural space capable of changing shape, content and color every minute, day after day, all year round, for thousands of years... And even if the landscape photograph you take does not contain any semantic core, it will always be aesthetic, which means it will always remind you of the essence and forms of beauty.
Articles
Nature... Beautiful in all seasons, enchanting the eye with its extraordinary views. She gives us beautiful landscapes that even on the gloomiest day can lift our spirits and make us smile.
It’s joyful to look at everything - snow-white winter pictures, the freshness of spring greenery, bright summer colors, shimmer. After all, it has long been known that “nature has no bad weather.”
It’s incredibly nice to see sunsets, endless fields, mountain peaks, bottomless oceans, and a radiant sky. Pictures of wild animals evoke tenderness, unusual birds, rare fish. The versatility of natural landscapes is simply immense!
All this causes incredible pride in the nature of not only Mother Russia, but the whole world! Makes us understand how wonderful the reality around us is and how magnificent our planet is. Today you will see high-resolution photographs of nature, conveying its charms in the smallest detail.
Thanks to professional photographers and filming in good quality everything on them seems alive. You look at beautiful places collected from all over the world and feel unity with them, as if you had just been there yourself. You feel the coolness of a rainy autumn day, hear the waves of the sea surf, and inhale the floral aroma.
Natural landscapes evoke unusual and very joyful emotions in people! To be constantly connected with nature, just download photos to your computer. Choosing something from such a wide variety is certainly not easy. After all, all the images are uniquely interesting, it is impossible to compare them, and it is difficult to settle on one moment, since each one is beautiful in some way and is especially sweet.
You can install a theme with rainbow shades of autumn, an untouched blanket of snow, on your phone for free. Or decorate your desktop with images of cute animals that fit harmoniously into beautiful scenery. Or add to your home collection a photo of a clearing completely strewn with flowers.
Many options and only the best pictures, revealing all the secrets of the nature of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and many other countries, allow you to find something that will definitely warm your soul.
This collection combines what is in real life you can never comprehend in one moment. There is no place here that separates the majestic rocks from the plains, a sunny spring day from a forest strewn with fallen leaves, a sultry desert from icy ridges. For the first time, you can grasp the immensity with one glance.
Take a break from worries, household chores, and fuss for a while and plunge into the secrets of the nature of your native Russia, business Europe, hospitable Asia, and the distant North Pole. Watch the life of animals, explore magical places around the world. Don’t forget to download them for free on your phone and desktop to create a special charm on your screen and always be on the same wavelength with beauty.
