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How Do I Choose the Best Fine Art Landscape Photographers?

Bryce Clinton

Last Modified Date: September 17, 2023

Choosing the best fine art landscape photographers takes research. Perhaps the best means for judging a photographer's skill is your own personal appreciation for landscape and fine art photography, but if you're having trouble deciding what you like, or can't seem to find any objective criteria for judging photographers, you can look to the history of photography for help. Books about photography are excellent resources to find out about world-renowned photographers.

Browsing the Internet is a great way to learn about landscape photography quickly. Another good place to gather information is the art history department of your local college or university. If you are only interested in fine art landscape photographers who have the best reputation, a great way to compare individual merits is to research who has won various fine art photography prizes. A lot depends on your reason for seeking out photographers.

Research in art books or on the Internet to find the style that most appeals to you.

Well-known fine art landscape photographers include Ansel Adams, Michael Frye, Elizabeth Carmel, Jennifer Wu, Sebastiao Salgado, Kenneth Parker, and many others. Some online directories include extensive lists of both traditional and contemporary landscape photographers, allowing you to click on names and find out more. If you're looking to buy art, you can sometimes go through photographer's websites, or find out who represents them. Many print and poster outlets offer affordable reproductions.

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Some online directories include extensive lists of both traditional and contemporary landscape photographers, allowing you to click on names and find out more.

When attempting to choose an aesthetic that you like, consider the many varieties of subject matter and printing style. No two fine art landscape photographers are alike, but you might be able to narrow down your taste according to favored geographical locations, types of perspectives and lenses, lighting, and color choice. You might decide you like vistas more than close ups, color more than back and white images, or experimental photography more than traditional photography.

Other things to consider when evaluating fine art landscape photographers is the amount of landscape you would prefer to see versus other subject matter. A great deal of modern landscape photography includes other elements and sometimes blurs together genres. Some viewers might want a pure landscape with no evidence of humanity in it, while others might appreciate elements of portraiture, industrial photography, or documentary photography in their landscapes.

Photography categorized under nature, wildlife, and travel can all have elements of landscape in them, so it's useful to search broadly when seeking out landscape photographers you might not know about. Some fine art landscape photographers also do interesting urban, conceptual, and night photography that you might find appealing. Keep your options open, and keep searching widely, and you're sure to find many more great photographers each year.

Discussion Comments

gravois

May 4, 2012

Does anyone have any advice about selling fine art photography? I recently inherited a large collection of landscape photographs from my late father and I know that some of them are quite valuable. His collection is more than I can display or manage so I am intending to sell off most of it.

Should I contact fine art photography galleries directly or should I try to work through an agent/broker?

jonrss

May 3, 2012

When people think of landscape photography they often think of boring peaceful scenes that might hang on the walls of a dentist office. But the truth is that there is a tremendous variety of landscape photography from throughout history and from all parts of the world. Some of the images are peaceful, sure, but others are violent, jarring, even disturbing. There is incredible aesthetic potential when photographing the land.

Since there is so much variety you can be choosy about what you buy. If you don't see something you like, keep looking, the right picture is out there somewhere. Or better yet, if you can't find what you are looking for pick up a camera and take the picture yourself.

truman12

May 2, 2012 It is always hard to say what is the best in art. I think that with landscape painting, like most art, you just have to go with what connects with you. The simple fact is that if you don't like looking at a painting you probably shouldn't buy it, no matter how good people say it is.

The art world always falls prey to tastemakers. It is supposed to be a very singular and personal pursuit and yet so many of us end up following a crowd.