The Weekly Landscape Thread

This weekly thread, starting on a Friday, allows us to showcase our Landscape photos and get some feedback.
Opening up discussions, not only on content, style, composition & techniques, but also on the emotion in the image, and of course about the place itself.

It’s easy to participate

Post an image or short essay with a title and description. To make it easier to view in the forum, all comments should include the original title and at least one of the original images as a quote.

Thread Guidelines:

1. This thread is for sharing and developing our Landscape photography skills.
2. Entries can be a single image or a short photo essay (2 to 10 connected images that tell a story).
3. Give your entry a clear title and perhaps also explain why you took it, or the story it tells.
4. Provide constructive feedback on others’ images/essays.
   Try to go beyond simple praise or dismissal and explain why you like it, or what caught your eye.
   ”Likes” are encouraged too.
5. Negative feedback and suggestions are also OK (be polite, honest, and constructive).

Giving feedback is just as important as receiving feedback, both help to improve our artistic and technical skills.

What is a Landscape photo?

This means different things for different people. For me, it includes a wide range of photos taken outside, … from wide sweeping vistas to smaller details found along the route. Seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, woodland shots, landscapes at night with some stars, and lots more are all OK. They could also include man-made objects and people or animals outside, but they are not usually the main subject. Show us, with your photos, what Landscape Photography means to you.

Motivation

I love to go hiking in the natural world and capture photos along the way. It keeps me fit (physically and mentally) and provides some beautiful memories. Processing those images when I return is fun too, it often helps to enhance what I saw.

Downloading and re-posting

It’s often challenging to verbalise comments about images. Instead, it’s sometimes easier to “show.” Unless the original poster specifically states otherwise (in each original post), participants are free to download, alter, and re-post images in replies to express their analysis and critique. Downloaded and altered images shall not be used for any other purposes or uploaded elsewhere.

Enough said,… Go out, enjoy the open air, take some photos. Bring back the memories and post them here in the Weekly Landscape Thread 😊

...looking forward to seeing your images,

The 3-Lake-Hike in Carinthia

Delving into my archives again since I haven’t managed to get out for any real hikes in the last couple of weeks, hoping this backache will be gone soon ☹

So, here’s a few more shots from our 2024 visit to Carinthia, Austria.
There’s a path called the “3 Seen Wanderweg” that we followed:

Can’t pass a lonely bench without getting a shot

A “Witches Ring” or just a place to sit and enjoy the view ?

Spiky larch tree needles and lichen covered twigs

The stumps were added extra for kids to jump from stump to stump

The next lake is not too far away

Nice. I see 3 lakes!

Here is a landscape-ish picture taken while on an urban boat ride last week. And a sunset.

Kirkland

East Passage

Bridge over a river:

And the Land Was on Fire

Yellowstone National Park

A few waterfalls we came across when driving down US 101.

Mt. Rainier

Sol Duc

It's so sad to see these forest fires. This shot really shows the devastating aftermath.

Right now in Europe fires are raging in Spain and France (Link)
Quotes from that BBC link:
"220,000 people have been evacuated already"
"Wildfires have burned more land in Europe already this year than the annual average for the past two decades"
"climate change has increased forest fire risk across Europe"
"Europe is the fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s"
"Hotter, drier conditions are leaving vegetation with less moisture, creating fuel that enables wildfires to ignite and spread more quickly" (with high speed winds, constantly changing direction)

The shot from the boat has a great sky with those nice fluffy clouds.
IMO, shots like this, with a long thin line of interesting detail between sea and sky, fit naturally with a more pano format, cropping some of the sea away, stretches the shot to fill a wide screen monitor and with less height the detail becomes bigger and clearer.

The bronze coloured sunset is wonderful!

Interesting shot with the two rivers taking us up to the bridge. The sky looks great!
If it were mine, I'd brighten it the shadows and mid-tones a bit. At the moment it looks quite sombre, but perhaps that was your intention?

Good series!!
Number 3 is amazing, it's a great landscape and the people give you an idea of the huge scale.
Waterfalls always seem to have a magical attraction for me. So many opportunities to photograph them in different ways, and the roar you here when close up is often so loud it blocks everything else, demanding 100% attention for itself.

From the Hot Air Balloon

While I agree with you on forest fires and the American West is having a very bad season this year. Forest fires are common place in the US West because of the hot dry semi-arid nature of the US West , they are not in Europe. Climate change will probably change that.

However, this image is not from a fire alone. This is from Mother earth. The trees try to grow but they are growing on hostile acid soil among vents and geysers ( ranging from Old Faithful spouting off over 100 feet in the air every 90 +/- minutes down to thousands of smaller ones spouting eruptions a of few feet at random ) - a geothermal wonderland known as Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is still a very active volcano.

However, fire is Mother nature's way of renewal. In the vast area of the Southeaster US, particularly Florida before man settled on average every area was burned every third year. The case was the dry seasons in the spring and early summer ignited by lightning strikes for summer thunderstonreus. In fact the native longleaf pines that dominated the forest in the Southeast required fire for the cones to open and drop their seeds. The Lodgepole pines of the US West which are primary tree in Yellowstone also require fire to drop their seeds. I the land is allowed to burn off periodically the pines will survive and the brush undergrowth will be burned. A healthy longleaf pine or lodgepole pine forest is open large mature healthy trees, most of them will burn marks on their large trunks. A healthy forest is one that is easy to walk through.

Mother Nature had reached a harmony long before man showed up. As man insists moving closer to nature, Mother Nature is not going to change her ways. In the Southeastern US man still insist in moving onto the Atlantic coast - an area that has been lashed by massive tropical storms and hurricanes. In the US West, man insists on living in "fire country."

Those are excellent. Right in my "back yard" -- I need to get out there to see it first hand! THANKS for posting.

I really like this. Where?

Stark and compelling. Great IQ and overall tone/balance. In the background, is that fog/clouds? Steam from a geyser? Was this shot taken immediately after the fire or maybe a year later? Where in Yellowstone?

Yes, good advice. I find that CROPPING in post is often THE KEY.

Holy smokes! Really cool. Where? I'm not sure if I'd have the courage to go up in a hot air balloon. Maybe? Airplanes are fine.