Any expanse of natural scenery that can be seen from one viewpoint is also called a landscape. The artistic meaning of landscape is the earliest, dating from the 1600s.
When did landscape emerge as a genre in western culture?
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the tradition of depicting pure landscapes declined, and the landscape was seen only as a setting for religious and figural scenes. This tradition continued until the 16th century when artists began to view the landscape as a subject in its own right.
When did classical landscapes emerge as a genre?
In the 17th century the classical landscape was born. These landscapes were influenced by classical antiquity and sought to illustrate an ideal landscape recalling Arcadia, a legendary place in ancient Greece known for its quiet pastoral beauty.
What prompted the rise of Landscape Art during the late 18th / 19th century?
Subsequently, religious painting declined throughout the rest of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. That fact, combined with a new Romanticism — which emphasized emotion, individualism, and the glorification of nature — promoted landscapes to a prestigious place in art that continues to this day.
When did landscape photography originate?
According to records, the earliest known evidence of a landscape photograph was taken between the years of 1826 and 1827. It was an urban landscape photo taken by a French inventor by the name of Nicephore Niepce.
My Photoshoot: Contact sheet
I decided to use lightroom to present all of my images, I have used filters to flag all the images i wish to edit or have already edited.
Experimenting with editing (before and after)
To edit my images, I decided to use lightroom as it has the options to change my images into HDR photos (high dynamic range). All of my photos were taken either at Plemont beach, Gorey and St Ouens, and were all taken either at sunrise or sunset to capture a more dramatic sky and lighting. I experimented with different shutter speeds, ISO, and exposures to capture the best images I could and to see what settings would make my images look the best. On a few of the images, the exposure is too low which made them quite dark, considering the scene was already quite dark at the time, so I had to increase the highlights and shadows in my editing to make sure I get all the details I can. I tried to use exposure bracketing on a couple of my images so that I could merge the 3 different exposures together to allow for more dynamic range and achieve a balanced exposure in all areas of the photo. Since I did not have a tripod, quite a few of my images were not in focus, but I was able to fix that by increasing the texture and making the foreground look a bit more unblurred. In future, I will ensure that I use a tripod or surface to steady my camera and compensate for the longer shutter speed.
With the three photos above, I decided to make them look more dramatic by putting them in black and white, I lowered the exposure and increased the contrast. I used two different setting on the tone of my image, with the shadows and highlights depending on how the image was in the first place and i ended up adding a vignette to add more depth.
For these three, i decided to make them a bit brighter but also still dramaticise them. I increased the vibrance and saturation of the images and the shadows and whites. I decreased the highlights and blacks. I also decreased the vignette of the image to make it look more dramatic.
Final images
