Product Description
Landscapes are among the most popular subjects for amateur photographers because they are readily available. This illustrated handbook approaches the subject according to the areas of interest to amateurs - types of landscape, camera equipment, lighting, exposure and composition. The sections address specific topics, such as seasonal portraits, mountains, coastlines and forests, wide-angle coverage, defining the horizon, sidelighting, sunsets and night photography. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

A Poor Choice for Digital Photographers
This book is at best a beginner introduction to digital photography and Photoshop.The author shows how he "enhanced" a range of photos using Photoshop.In many cases, the enhancements are questionable and/or so subtle as to make little difference to the result.I learned nothing from it.There are far, far better books available for digital photographers who wish to learn how to use Photoshop to enhance their photos.Give this one a pass. ... Read more

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Westcliffe Publishers 1985 hardback oversize ... Read more

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Illustrated throughout with images of international locations, this guide covers all scales of work from epic panoramas to intimate details of nature. The author starts by looking at basic photographic considerations: film, choice and exposure; composition; natural and artificial lighting; and night and low-light techniques. He then explores the creative considerations behind different subject areas: the wilderness; people in the landscape; man-made environments; close-up images of landscape; and a discussion on the often-overlooked aspects of landscape photography including story lines, informative versus aesthetic content, new locations and how to make the most of the unremarked. Benrie finally provides an overview of photographic equipment available, as well as digital options - the place of the computer in the landscape photographer's repertoire plus electronic storage and distribution of images. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Fantastic book - not for beginners
No need to write a full review here Conrad J. Obregon has said it all perfectly in his review below.
This is not a book for beginners, if you do not have some experience with Landscape Photography the value of this book will be lost on you. However, if you do have some experience this book is an absolute joy. If you wish for your photo's to convey the 'feeling' of the landscape, this is the book for you.
As for the the negative and silly comments in other reviews .... ignorance is bliss !

Pleasant and thoughtful.
I like this book, but I don't feel inspired by it.Benvie's photographs and text tend to be low-key and thoughtful, but they don't send me out in the field to make my own.

Boring!!
It's just plane boring!!Very little, if any information on photographing landscapes; it just seems to ramble.No mention of what cameras or camera sizes used, just rambles on about nothing.No technical information and the photographs are made in europe.What little hard information there is, is in the metric system...all in all, not nearly worth the cost of the book.

A Great Book, But Not for Everyone
Creative Landscape Photography is an excellent book, with a specific audience that does not include the rank beginner or even someone who is just comfortable with the controls on a single lens reflex camera.If you fall into that category I suggest you read John Shaw's Landscape Photography or, if you want something a little more up-to-date and covering almost the same ground, Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide.Benvie presumes you know about technique and tries to develop your creative side so that you can put your opinions, beliefs and experiences into your landscape pictures.He believes that while great pictures can be found, many others must be intended.

The first things he examines are some of the concepts that are critical to understanding what can be influenced to convey your vision: exposure, space, light and darkness.For example in his discussion of light he talks about the nature of fog and some of its different forms and how this can be used by the photographer in creating his image.

He next examines the environments of landscape: wilderness, land dominated by people, city and garden and what he calls the intimate landscape, that is, the detailed view or close-ups.In discussing the city he talks about both iconic scenes and the incongruous.His views of each of these environments in terms of photographic vision reflect his feeling about man's relationship to the landscape.Benvie say "I have merely recounted my own response to environments and suggested that we should think about what we are looking at, rather than taking it at face value."

Benvie discusses the hardware that he uses for landscape photography in a chapter that seemed to say, "my editor said I have to talk about equipment".Although I'm sure, for a committed professional, a one-yard square softbox may be essential, most readers will not be inspired to make such an investment.

A chapter I particularly liked was devoted to digital finishing.Few photography authors acknowledge that the digital darkroom is rapidly replacing its chemical predecessor.Benvie takes several photographs and shows how he adjusted them in Photoshop.This in no way constitutes Photoshop instruction (for that, I'd recommend Barry Haynes' Photoshop 6 Artistry to both novice and experienced photographers).But it is interesting to see how a particular artist approaches his work and uses his photographic intentions to select digital tools.

This book operates in the overlap between photography and philosophy.Ultimately the question the reading photographer must ask is whether he (or she) is at the stage where he needs to develop his photographic vision.If one is, there is no clear or easy path to that development.Benvie may or may not work for you.You might benefit from Galen Rowell's Inner Game of Outdoor Photography.Or you might need to look afield to something like Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory.I believe that this is the most difficult step for a committed photographer and that it takes a combination of many different tools to develop vision.Some tools will be more helpful for a particular individual.But I think that Creative Landscape Photography is well worth the try. ... Read more

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Planning a visit or day trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Want to know the best places to hike and take pictures of the beautiful vistas, rivers and waterfalls? Where to find spring and summer wildflowers as well as the Park’s various wildlife? Travel Photo Guides Great Smoky Mountains National Park app shows you everything you’ll want to see and photograph. This book contains the content from that app, all of the great pictures, information, camera settings and GPS coordinates.

To see the iPhone app, visit http://www.travelphotoguides.com ... Read more

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Geoffrey Jellicoe has long been regarded internationally as the pre-eminent landscape architect of our time. His working career embraces a variety of landscapes and gardens. Project by project, this monograph examines the definitive canon of Jellicoe's work. Divided into four major sections, over 50 projects, both planned and fully realised, are described in detail, each with a preamble by the author, followed by Jellicoe's own comments from hitherto unpublished papers or his texts on landscape design. The projects include his masterworks: Shute House, Sutton Place, the Moody Gardens and the Atlanta Historical Garden. Several complete schemes have been photographed by Hugh Palmer, notably at Ditchley, Saint Paul's Walden Bury and Shute. Where available, Jellicoe's own plans have been reproduced in colour. ... Read more

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In this book of sixty black-and-white panoramas, photographer Laurie Brown documents the changing landscape along the western edge of Southern California. These stark, compelling images reveal a world scraped and reshaped by construction equipment—boulders pushed aside, stretches of earth flattened and then measured with surveyor sticks. High-tech housing developments rise in these places, lines of identical homes that simultaneously offer a pleasing vision of order and a numbing prospect of sterile conformity. Recent Terrains: Terraforming the American West is a thoughtful sequence of photographs that consider how the planet's surface has been transformed to meet the needs of our consumer society.

The term terraforming originated in Kim Stanley Robinson's science fiction trilogy about the colonization of Mars, in which that planet is reshaped for human settlers. The panoramic format of Brown's photographs is partly inspired by space photography—with their long and low perspectives of the horizon, these photos give us views of our own planet as it might be seen by the Mars explorer. But if many of the images look like alien landscapes, they reveal a familiar shift in American geography: the wild, agricultural terrain of our early frontier gives way to densely built suburban communities.

Brown's photographs are neutral about what they record, dramatizing some of the tensions and dualities that comprise our society's complex relationship to nature. She shows the invasion of unspoiled territory by the high-tech developments we so often label with the pejorative term suburban sprawl. At the same time, however, she uncovers surreal stillness and beauty in the built environment, searching for a postindustrial idea of the sublime.

Taken during the last decade of the twentieth century, these photographs serve as an archive of change at a specific place on the coastal edge of California at the turn of the millennium. But these images have larger relevance for all of us, exploring our ideas about what constitutes a home and what defines our sense of community.

The book is divided into three sections, each prefaced by a poem by Los Angeles poet Martha Ronk; it concludes with an essay by renowned writer and conservationist Charles E. Little. Recent Terrains is a major photographic work—a thoughtful, serious book of time and place. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Dazzling artistry
I have been collecting the Wildlife Photographer of the Year albums assiduously almost from their first year, being a wildlife and landscape hobbyist and small-scale BBC Picture Library contributor myself. I was, therefore, gratified to find that Charlie Waite, a regular on the pages of British photography magazines, had organised a similar compilation for Landscape photographers. It is safe to say that I am not disappointed with the result.

The quality of the pictures is almost uniformly stunning. The quality of the print, paper and binding is solid. The pictures, apart from the cover, the winner and a couple of introductory slots, are organised into straightforward competition categories. The landscapes, all British, are quite sublime. The winner is of a landscape featured twice in the book, the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye, and it is a dazzling panorama of one of the most striking natural formations I have seen. To my eye, it looks like an HDR - the kind of landscape quite within reach of today's digital camera owner without exorbitant panoramic cameras.

If you are not familiar with the British landscape you should consider acquiring this book. (Well, if you are in addition interested in the British landscape.) The scale and grandeur are not what a US resident might be used to, but the variety and exquisite beauty are in a class of their own. A Kiwi friend of mine travelling through Wales was once told that the mountains were to his left and he answered, "What, are they behind the hills?" Britain is smaller. It is a deformity with which we have learned to live, and compensated for by sheer variety and intimacy.

These photographers do our island all justice. There are a fair proportion of monochrome shots - also easier for us to dabble in with digital technology - and these still grip and communicate atmosphere in a quite different way, all these years after the daguerreotype. One photo is simply of a group of trees in the mist - a very British theme - and yet it whispers to me of home and I grow nostalgic.

If I have one quibble, it is that the urban landscapes cross the line into people photography. Not that I wish to denigrate mere, shuffling, huddled people by comparison with the majesty of the, er, hills. Still, this is a book of landscape photography and a child flying through the air seems to me to belong in another competition. Hurling, perhaps. Having said that, urban photography has tended to be neglected by nature photographers and this is a shame, as so much of our nature is urban these days. (Such as the peregrines nesting on the Tate Modern, or the whale that wandered up the Thames a years or so ago.) This book redresses that neglect somewhat.

I was delighted to find that a phone-camera section has been included. I carry a Nikon welded to my face like any normal person, but it strikes me very strongly that we live in a photographic age like none before when it is almost impossible to get a phone without a built-in camera. The art and science of photography are not merely behind the lens but between the ears, and it is a clever recognition on the part of the organisers to see the worth in camera photographs. It speaks of a team not loath to think a little different. And that suggests that this series will continue to deliver the stunning goods seen here. ... Read more

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The bioregion of Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea possesses a unique natural heritage stretching back over the fifty million years since the break-up of the great southern continent of Gondwana. ANZANG Nature is an organisation whose focus is enhancing a general awareness of this extraordinary legacy by encouraging photography of the region's nature and wilderness and promoting an annual competition to find the Nature and Landscape photographer of the year.

This superb Fourth Collection presents more than 100 of the finest photographs submitted to the 2007 competition. Each photograph is accompanied by technical information as well as anecdotes about how the picture was taken, which will stimulate yet further interest in the flora and fauna and their conservation in the region. ... Read more

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This digital document is a journal article from Landscape and Urban Planning, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The visual and aesthetic aspects of any object are defined by its colour, form, line and texture. To these, might be added compositional reference elements such as scale and, in the case of three-dimensional scenes, spatial character. This paper investigates 'texture', allowing the designer to analyse visual elements in terms of the properties that define them. 'Texture' is defined by its regularity, density, internal contrast and grain size. The proposed approach studies the relationship between buildings and their background. The approach includes computer analysis of landscape images, public preferences for integration of agro-industrial buildings and a special table for systematic application of the process. It is hoped that this approach will help professional designers to select appropriate building textures in order to harmonize architecture and the surrounding. ... Read more

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Gerry Spence is best known as an undefeated trail lawyer and a rugged individualist whose public pronouncements ring with the authority of common sense and moral vision. But like the Wyoming in which he grew to manhood, he has many facets. A lifelong photographer and poet, he now turns his attention to his native state to share the marvels and mysteries he finds in the landscape and among the people.

Spence's Wyoming is a land fast disappearing, a land of pioneers and poor framers, of cowboys and mountain men and the strong women who helped settle the land. It is a place of extraordinary landscapes that seem to feel the breath of God, of mountains that inspire awe, of ancient trees whose figures bring true nobility to the face of the earth.

Captured in stunning photographs, gorgeously reproduced in duotone, and accompanied by his poetry, which the author reads in the accompanying CD, Gerry Spence's Wyoming brings us a vision of the land that only love and intimate knowledge could produce.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

it's OK but only OK
When I saw that Gerry Spence had a book of his favorite photographs of Wyoming that he made, I thought, "man this is gonna be great. It's Wyoming, which is a place like no other, and it's Gerry Spence, a man like no other."

I have to give him respect, he has talent in photography. It looks like he's studied Ansel Adams quite a bit and he has similar equipment. You do have to sit out in the elements quite a long while to get a good shot, which bespeaks his endurance and willingness to do the best job he can when it's his name behind it. That's pretty seldom nowdays, which I respect. He has an eye for the right shot as well, which says he's a man of the outdoors who has practiced a lot.

I thought his poetry sounded too much like what you'd say in a final argument at a jury trial. That works incredibly well - a fellow attorney, I wish I were as fluid with words and spoken imagery as he is - but as "poetry" it's out of place here I think, because you can still feel the litigious "feel" of what the poetry is. Nature doesn't know plaintiff and defendant, even if the defendants are S.O.B.'s as they usually are.

There are also too many of the same types of images. He'll have a great image here or there - there's a picture of a colony of quaking-aspen that's just great, but there are many other pictures of the same sort of subject matter, trees crest in snow under a sunny winter sky.

It's Gerry Spence here. Pure and simple - with some strengths that you wouldn't have thought he had, but with some choices that I wouldn't've made myself which take away from the effect that he's trying to present to you, the reader who's not from Wyoming and hasn't experienced what he's experienced in his life. I can see what the effect is that he's aiming at but it's too personalized to the guy that took the pictures and wrote the text. That's how I'd say it. He has some moments of greatness in it though - that's why I give it 3 stars. It wasn't what I'd have thought it would have been at all, but then again, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be somebody else's thing completely.

Gerry Spence's Wyoming: The Landscape
I received this book today. I sat down and looked at the pictures as I read the poems. I found it to be a wonderful book. The pictures told a story. I found the poems to be very good. Gerry Spence has a voice that one could never tire of hearing. It shows the landscape of Wyoming, not the tourist traps. This a long way from the home that Gerry Spence and his lovely wife Imaging occupy in Jackson Hole. Good job Gerry, if one did not know you were such a celebrity, it would never be guessed by looking at the wonderful black and white pictures with the story telling poems.

"a landscape bereft of its people is no landscape at all."

Thank you,Gerry,for the wonderful experience of experiencing the wonders of Wyoming. Spending the time listening to you read your poems while following the words in the book and bringing it to life with your personal photographs;is a real pleasure.
It's been said, that someone once asked Picasso how long it took him to paint one of his pictures. His reply was thatit took about 40 years. With that thought in mind,it can surely be said that it took Gerry Spence at least 40 years, but more likely closer to a lifetime of 70 years to gain the love and feeling of his country to write this wonderful book.
I have read a few of his books,but none convey the feel of his surroundings and country as well as this book does.
I am not a particular fan of recorded books;but in this case ,the combination of photographs,written words to follow,while we listen to Gerry's impassioned reading is simply stunning.
The photograph of the girl sitting in the window of a long abandoned log cabin is accompanied with this short,haunting poem;

They Have Gone

They have gone,
And here we are,
Flying on the wings of history.

captures the days of the pioneers who settled the land.

Then we see the two photographs on pages 82 and 83.An abandoned cabin at close range and then at a distance across water.One can feel how glad to see his cabin at a distance,the owner must have been, when it came into view; and then how glad he was to finally reach its door.It takes the soul of an artist ,first to see this scene and then capture it with his camera.The reader is left withwondering what stories this cabin could tell.

Gerry captures this land with this poem;

It's over
This is the last roundup.
We have abandoned the long prairies
And the endless,rolling mountains,
We have abandoned this blessed realm
To the antelope,the prairie dogs
And a new horde of interlopers
Who chop the land
Into mournful pieces
For investment bankers
Who hanker to become
Real cowboys on twenty acres.

Thank you,Gerry,for sharing this landscape,people and quickly disappearing way of life with us.

Bland Photography
Gerry Spence is a man of many talents, photography, however, may not be his strongest. The photographs are much better than your average snapshot, but not quite as impressive as they should be to have been published. All in all, the images are a bit of a dissapointment if one wants to appreciate fine art photography.

Gerry Spence, Renaissance Man
For this right-wing gun-nut, Gerry Spence is one of my favorite lefties. I used to enjoy his MSNBC program, hearing his crystalclear and caustic barbs, his populist message and his most learned opinions on legal cases circulating at the time. Most importantly, he was one of the few on the left who saw the massacre of the Branch Davidians at Waco for the brutal and horrific slaughter at the hands of Janet Reno that it was.

That is what the world needs most: Honest men and women, who don't flinch from the truth when the truth happens to gore oxen on their side of their political fence. Like the land from which he hails, Gerry Spence brims over with the pioneer spirit: Rough and rugged, independent and erudite, full of common sense and plain decency, he is a man more at home in the 19th than the 20th century (never mind the weak and effete "metrosexual" wussies of this 21st century).

One could call this book "The Memoirs of the Last Real Man." Though his photography is traditionalist, somewhat akin to the formalistic work of Ansel Adams, the vision is singularly Spence's. A labor of love, a visual celebrating of the artist's solitary homeland, one can sense that where most men see only barren badlands, Spence sees splendrous vistas, touched by the hand of the Creator.

Although his photographs are bold, they are yet quiet and bare the soul of a man who's quite comfortable in his own skin. They are simple, yet powerful, documents of a land upon which man is but a temporal, fleeting presence. The permanance of the land is the only constant.

Thus are his most interesting landscapes not one's purely of nature, but of the fragile hand of man before the inevitability of nature's supremacy: Abandoned dwellings, out-of-business gas stations, empty granaries are but shadows of their former bustling selves. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

His portraits do not overlook this truth; the few humans portrayed in this text are part and parcel of the land -- a cowboy, a mountaineer, a modern-day Annie Oakley, a Shoshoni Indian. These are not people who are enslaved by the claustrophobic office cubicle.

Thus does Spence write in the poem "The People Are the Landscape":

The people are the landscape,
The woman on the county grader
Plowing out the last of last winter's snow
The wild crying Shoshoni dancing,
His days not done
The shepherd by his wagon
Lost in a landscape of bleeting,
Old faces furrowed in the sun.
Their faces are the landscape,
Their faces, the land,
Hard and honest,
With no pretensions in the morning.

Absent is the didactic, pedantic hectoring of the man-hating environmentalists; Spence understands intuitively the American Indian conception that man is part of the Earth, and that before he returns to the Earth, that his place is properly living in harmony with the Earth, for the Earth is his grandmother.

This book, though by a celebrity attorney, is the furthest thing from the vapid and glitzy world of celebrity. It is the work of a man alone, relating through his eyes and mind how nature and man have moved him. In awe, to tears, with laughter. ... Read more