15 Inspiring Landscape Photographers

There is a plethora of very talented landscape photographers out in the field these days, both hobbyists and professionals alike. The following is a collection of some of them, and may you enjoy their talent, craftsmanship, and dedication to the genre.

Philip Slotte

‘Sorunda’

Philip is a twenty-three-year-old self-taught landscape and travel photographer based in Stockholm, Sweden. He started with photography when he was 16 years old, taking photos with his phone.

In June 2012 he received his first digital camera as a gift from his parents. Since then, he has spent many hours in nature and on YouTube to learn how to take better photos. What he loves about landscape photography is the combination of traveling and photography. Philip loves exploring and seeing new places for the first time.

Links: Website, Instagram

Kai Hornung

‘Escape’

Kai Hornung is a landscape photographer based in Hanover, Germany. What started out as an ‘I photograph my kids and holidays’ sort of approach turned into a dedicated passion for photographing nature in 2016. Since then, Kai has been busy traveling Europe to shoot different countries and places. His landscape art which is a mix of grand vistas and intimate scenes has seen him win several international awards, and his work has been published in online and traditional offline magazines.

Kai has a background as a singer in rock bands for several decades. Being creative and working with mood and feelings have always been a driving force for him. Making his images sing is what he is aiming for now, be it the grand and dramatic, or the small and abstract moments in which he quiets the chaos that surrounds us. Kai is an artist and freelance photographer who also writes articles and teaches photography.

Links: Website, Instagram, Facebook

Dino Marsango

‘The Lonely Tree’

Dino is an Italian landscape photographer. Photography is first and foremost a hobby since he is employed in a factory. He began photographing back in 1983 when his then-girlfriend, now wife, gave him a Yashica FX3. He immediately fell in love with photography and spent the next ten years honing his talent. Due to work problems, he lost interest in photography at one point but started up again 6–7 years ago.

Dino considers himself lucky living close to the Dolomites, which offer a fantastic landscape. He is only out shooting during sunsets and sunrises when the light is best. Getting up very early for sunrises can at times be challenging. Dino occasionally organizes workshops in the Dolomites, Tuscany, Val d’Orcia and also Slovenia. He hopes to do more teaching and workshops after he retires. Never having seen the aurora, Norway and Iceland are high on his wish list.

Links: 500px, Instagram, Facebook

Gianluca Podesta

‘Rivendell’

Gianluca is a creative photographer based in the north of Italy. He likes to create epic images, and with the help of nature, paint his photos. He has always been fascinated and inspired by American photographers such as Marc Adamus, Ryan Dyar, Ted Gore, Chip Philips, etc. It has been challenging trying to emulate their style, but step by step helped by watching tutorials Gianluca has created what he calls his own style. Enrico Fossati has been of great help to Gianluca, notably when it comes to finding great locations for photography.

​Gianluca’s work has won several prizes and his images have been published in various magazines.

“Now after almost 5 years of photography, I’m always searching for new ways of conveying my creativity, with a special focus towards the natural combined with a touch of fantasy,” he says.

Links: 500px, Instagram, Facebook

Kane Engelbert

‘Sandstone Vortex’

Kane Engelbert is a long-time landscape photographer residing in Denver, Colorado. An avid outdoorsman, Kane began his photography journey 25 years ago while visiting over 300 Colorado mountain summits, all the while mastering a map reading and GPS skillset that allowed for confident and accurate backcountry travel. The one constant through the years? Kane has never left home without a camera. Capturing the mystical feel and pure emotional essence of backcountry wilderness became his passion. Years later, those backcountry experiences bridged together landscape photography and today’s passion for the outdoors.

Today, Kane continues to explore and revisit great places in Colorado. However, the Desert Southwest has quickly become a favorite for exploring powerful scenes. An occasional visit to the Pacific Northwest or the Grassland prairies of the midwest rounds out his growing landscape resume. Kane chases light and color while aiming for a clean and “light handed” processing look. He leverages real light and real color, eliminates color casts, and extracts the pleasing true color tonalities that nature unveils. If only one Kane Engelbert image connects with you for just 10–20 seconds, creating even the slightest distraction from our daily grind, then his job is done.

Links: Website, Facebook, Instagram

Natassa Triantafillou

“The Soloist’

Natassa Triantafyllou is a self-taught photographer based in Greece. Her education, financial banking, and management, isn’t exactly related to photography, but after she took her first image with a camera a new passion was born. She really loves to hear the click of the shutter so she tends to shoot everything. However, as a nature-lover, she mostly enjoys shooting anything that has to do with mother nature. For her, being out and exploring is the best part of photography. The drive to get out of her comfort zone is what has led her to progress the most in her work.

Links: Instagram, 500px

Christos Zoumides

‘Ode to Light’

Christos is a full-time environmental and water management researcher and a self-taught photographer based in Cyprus. He bought his first camera for a university trip to Tanzania thinking he would not forgive himself if he didn’t have a medium to capture the beauty of people and landscapes in such an exotic environment. Very soon photography became his passion, and his affection to nature was the main motivation to take it more seriously in 2015, after obtaining his Ph.D.

He first started developing his macro photography skills to become acquainted with the infinite colors, textures and physical architecture in the exciting microcosmos. His interests gradually evolved into landscape photography and he enjoys its creative process; the hiking and scouting for beautiful scenes and scenery, the chasing of good light, and the tranquility that landscape photography offers.

Through his work, he attempts to transmit the aesthetics of these elements and share the unpretentious beauty that surrounds us, hoping to stimulate feelings of joy and peace of mind to the viewer. His endless curiosity and eagerness to develop his skills and explore different genres have lately driven him to experiment with portrait photography as well. His work has been published in scientific books and articles, magazines, travel guides, and postcards. He is often invited to deliver lectures on photographic techniques and present his work to local photographic societies.

Links: 500px, Flickr, Instagram

Roksolyana Hilevych

‘Dragon Eggs’

Roksolyana is a landscape photographer based in Italy. Her passion for photography was born around the age of 5 in her father’s darkroom. Spending her childhood in the Carpathian mountains taught her to love nature in all its nuances and also aroused a strong desire in her to explore more. This further led to that Rokoslyana wanted to start immortalizing the magical moments that only nature can give. For many years she dabbled in ceremony photography and portraiture, having her father (also a photographer) as a reference point.

Over time, however, she began to understand that only landscape photography could make her feel satisfied and bring out the strongest emotions. Over the years Roksolyana began to feel the need to express her personal and creative vision. She did not like the idea of ​​documenting reality and so she started studying post-production, initially attending some basic course, subsequently reading various books and spending whole days experimenting to find a personal style. She is still continuously growing always looking for new techniques both in the practical field and in post-production.

Links: Instagram, Facebook, 500px

Greg Stokesbury

‘Split Personality’

Greg Stokesbury’s first memory of using a camera was as a 10 year old taking pictures at Canyon de Chelly in NE Arizona. He was on a family trip with an old “Yashica brownie” camera. Little did he know that decades later that this part of the country would become a favorite to photograph. Being raised in the flatlands of Kansas, his landscape photography didn’t take hold until after graduating from Kansas University and moving to Texas as a pharmacist. There he began photographing the swamps of Eastern Texas while dabbling in sports photography and photographing musicians across all genres in all settings.

But the true passion of landscape photography came after moving to Oregon and its lush greenery 30 years ago. That was where his love of all waterfalls trailed and untrailed became an obsession. Finally, 6 years ago he bought his first full-frame camera, the Canon 5D Mark II. Now armed with a professional-style camera, he immersed himself in Photoshop taking lessons from some of the top people in landscape photography. He embarked on photo trips from the Yukon to the old love of the SW to hone his passion watching and learning from the best in the business.

In the same time frame, he added another photography passion: underwater photography. He hopes to continue to learn and improve his images above and below water, always willing to take suggestions, knowing that as in everything, there is always someone better.

Links: 500px, Instagram

Scott Smorra

‘After the Storm’

Scott Smorra is an Oregon, USA based photographer who creates finely crafted landscape and nature imagery in the wilderness areas of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. His goal is not to merely document nature in a photojournalistic style, but rather to capture the beauty, emotions, and moods of nature. He views photography as an artistic medium and uses a variety of techniques during image capture and post-processing to help achieve his personal vision for each image. He hopes when you view his images, you feel some of the emotions he experiences while traveling through the wilderness.

Links: Website, Facebook, Instagram, 500px

Nathaniel Merz

‘Alone above the Mist’

Nathaniel Merz is a photographer based out of South Korea with a love for many forms of nature photography but a particular passion for capturing the essence of the Korean landscape. In particular, he is drawn to the almost mystic pine trees that grow out of harsh rocky peaks. As subjects, he finds these trees not only beautiful on their own but also meaningful as important national symbols of the country that he calls home. While not on his own adventures, he enjoys giving private tours of the country for those hoping to see the unique landscape for themselves.

Links: Webpage, Instagram, 500px

Bryce Mironuck

‘Wonder of Moonlight’

Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Canada, Bryce’s first love of photography arose out of the incredible dark night skies of southern Saskatchewan. Access to pristine and uninterrupted Milky Way night skies served to be a technical and artistic cornerstone to a personal photographic journey. After nearly a decade long hiatus from traveling, his budding love of photography called him to action, and a single summer trip to the Canadian Rockies was all it took to cement the travel photography bug. Since then, his photographic adventures have taken him to many places across the United States, and as far south as the southern tip of South America to a region known as Patagonia.

Coming from a family with a history of artistic talent, he had a natural aptitude and appreciation for art, but never the drive or ambition for most mediums of it. After getting a camera in his hands, it finally unearthed the ability to artistically express what lay dormant for so many years. Shortly after beginning, photography was no longer something to casually enjoy but became an intensely joyful ritual and something to truly obsess over. Everything from the act of photographing, processing, traveling, planning, and the logistics down to the smallest level of detail was all something to contemplate and fully enjoy without being taken for granted, often pouring many months of research into a single trip.

Inspired by the work of other esteemed photographer’s art galleries, he has now expanded to printmaking as a natural extension of his art. Currently, he is working on building his brand and business of selling photography prints through his website in order to fully celebrate his work, and allow his photographs to come alive as true art pieces.

Links: Website, 500px, Instagram

Ryan Buchanan

‘Forged’

Ryan Buchanan is a Texas-based landscape photographer and currently serves as the Creative Director of an in-house marketing and advertising agency. His roots as a graphic designer and illustrator have allowed him to incorporate his creative mind into his work life and eventually realize his true passion for photography.

For Ryan, landscape photography is the perfect escape to nature, a creative challenge, and an artistic expression. With a surreal and vivid editing style, he brings his dramatic compositions to life, interpreting each scene in his own creative way. As a new father to a 16-month old boy, Ryan puts family first but takes every chance he can to get out in nature and capture his scenes.

Links: Website, 500px, Instagram

Waheed Akhtar

‘The Beauty of Minimarg’

Waheed Akhtar, a multiple international award-winning photographer from Pakistan and based in Dubai, UAE. Waheed was passionate about sketching since childhood which took him to the web design and graphic design field where he has spent almost 18 plus years till now.

The photography passion kicked in when he started blogging in 2010–2011. He used to spend most of the time looking at photos from other artists and featuring them on his blog. Looking at so many inspirational pictures every day led him to start taking photos himself.

He started taking pictures officially in 2013 when bought his first camera. He followed his passion (and still do) and never looked at the money-making side of photography. Even though it’s good to earn money from photography, he’s not here to run after it. He believes in working hard and following what his heart says. Being out in nature and capturing those beautiful moments is all that matters to him.

Waheed has been nominated, shortlisted, got published in international magazines and scored few international photography awards in the last few years. He also loves to pass his knowledge and years of experience to others through teaching.

Links: Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

Jaeyoun Ryu

Jaeyoun Ryu is a landscape photographer based in Cheonan, Republic of Korea. He tries to express the calm and peaceful scenery of nature with the help of a photograph. A dramatic atmosphere which often includes dreamy fog and good light connect well with the subjects he records. This is reflected in his favorite themes, which are Korean mountains, forests, fog and pine trees which all are attractive subjects for him. They are common landscapes in Korea, but they are becoming increasingly rare. He interprets these scenes from an Asian perspective and expresses them accordingly.

Links: 500px, Instagram


About the author: Ole Henrik Skjelstad is a landscape photographer and math teacher from Norway. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Skjelstad’s work on his website, Flickr, 500px, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

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