When you think landscapes you don’t normally think of a shot taken in the heart of a major city like New York City. Urban landscape photography is a fast growing genre that challenges even the most veteran photographers. So what is Urban Landscape photography?
Landscape photography is described as capturing [with your camera] spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes (Wikipedia). The word “urban” refers to a city or a town. When we combine them, urban landscape, we are referring to images that capture scenes within a city or town that can be vast (think cityscape or shot of the city from above the city) or they can be more “microscopic” in nature.
Urban landscape photography can be done from within a city or town, above it, or from the outside looking in… You have most likely created urban landscape photography whether you intended to or now. Most anyone who has traveled with a camera takes urban landscape photography, I know I do. Urban landscape photography is one of the best ways to document our experiences when visiting new places. Sometimes there are so many colors, shapes, symbols, people, etc. that our senses are overwhelmed and we can miss a lot if we don’t have a way to document it and view it later.
So now you know what urban landscape photography is, check back to PhotolisticLife for upcoming articles on how to perfect your urban landscape photography. In fact, here is a small teaser from the next article on urban landscapes:
Pro Tip: There is certainly a hierarchy of composition builders when it comes to urban landscape photography. Foreground and human elements are probably at the base of the pyramid, meaning they are the strongest elements you could use to build your composition. Next in line would be things like leading lines, reflections, and juxtaposition. To learn more about the compositional building blocks of great photography check out my article on The Pyramid Of Composition.
As always, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
