Landscape remains one of the commonest genres for the photographer with most using the camera as a memory machine but with little inner reflection on the underlying reasons for their choice of shot. The fact that it is a view of the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower is sufficient and the resulting images are a means of demonstrating that the taker has been to the location and it really is as remarkable as people say it is. For others the selection is more reflective and the resulting images allow the viewer to dissect their own emotional and socio-political reactions and add their own interpretions, correct or incorrect, to what the photographer intended. To understand the origins of landscape photography there are different pages that cover regional areas during the nineteenth century. The reason for this is that in each area the cultural motivations and styles have subtle differences worthy of examination.

• Europe
   
  Europe, particularly France and Britain where the early inventions in cameras and processes took place, had traditions of landscape painting, drawing and engraving that extended back over centuries. Some pioneering photographers, such André Giroux and Gustave Le Gray, were talented artists and their vision was influenced by their training and the composition rules of contemporary artworks.
   
  Photographers: [Britain] Francis Bedford, Roger Fenton, Francis Frith, William Henry Fox Talbot, John Thomson, Henry White, George Washington Wilson, James Valentine [France] André Giroux, Gustave Le Gray, Louis-Rémy Robert, Camille Silvy [Elsewhere] Knud Knudsen, Hermann Krone
• Classical Worlds
   
  Italy and Greece had locations beloved by the educated and leisured classes on the Grand Tour who sought refinement by visiting the ancient cities and archaeological excavations. Within months of the announcement of the Daguerreotype process in 1839 photographers set out to take images of these sites and sell them to an appreciative populace.
   
  Photographers: Francis Bedford, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Reverend Calvert Jones, Robert MacPherson, Philippos Margaritis, Eugene Piot, Giorgio Sommer, William J. Stillman
• Middle East
   
  With its dual connection to Biblical sites and exotic Egyptian monuments the Middle East offered the mysteries of orientalism blended with the places sacred to Judeo-Christian beliefs.
   
  Photographers: Felice Beato, Francis Bedford, Felix Bonfils, Maxime Du Camp, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Francis Frith, John Beasley Greene, Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, Gustave Le Gray, Auguste Salzmann, Pascal Sebah, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Félix Teynard, Zangaki Brothers
• Asia
   
  During the nineteenth century enormous changes took place in Asia as local rulers came under colonial influence. The best known photographers of India, China and Japan were a combination of European military officers, missionaries and travelers who recorded the campaigns, landscapes and later the people and customs of the nations they traversed or administrated.
   
  Photographers: [European] Felice Beato, Samuel Bourne, John Burke, Adolfo Farsari, John Murray, Father Leone Nani, Federico Peliti, John Thomson, Linnaeus Tripe [Local] Lala Deen Dayal, Lai Afong
• North America
   
  Photographers who had gained experience during the American Civil War (1861-1865) accompanied the military expeditions, survey parties, railroad teams and wagon trains across the continent. They were resourced by the Federal government or by wealthy industrialists and this meant that the material has survived well in public and private collections.
   
  Photographers: Alexander Gardner, John K. Hillers, William Henry Jackson, Eadweard Muybridge, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Andrew Joseph Russell, Carleton Eugene Watkins, Charles Leander Weed
• Africa
   
  In researching material for this website I've examined a great many sources and although I have found material for North Africa I've come across no good material on nineteenth century landscape photographers in other regions. If you have any helpful information please contact me at alan@luminous-lint.com so that I can remedy this omission.
• South and Central America
   
  I am seeking to include high quality nineteenth century landscape photographers who worked in South and Central America if you have any relevant information I can be contacted on alan@luminous-lint.com.
   
  Photographers: Claude-Joseph Désiré Charnay, Marc Ferrez
• Australia, New Zealand, Micronesia and Polynesia
   
  Each of these areas had their own photographers in the Nineteenth century.
   
  Photographers: [Australia] Charles Baylis, Alexander Brodie, Nicholas Caire, William Hetzer, Charles Kerry, Henry King, Beaufoy Merlin, Henry Paine [Micronesia] Charles Kerry, The Burton Brothers from New Zealand consisting of Alfred Henry Burton (1834-1914) and Walter John Burton (1836-1880). [New Zealand] Daniel Beere, Samuel Carnell, William Harding, Reginald Horsley who photographed for Valentine & Co of England and William Tyree.

 
  
Once the regional trends in the landscape photography in the nineteenth century have been examined it is necessary to understand the motivations that provoked global movements through exhibitions, magazines and personal relationships. The soft focused pigment prints of pictorialism are examined followed by the reaction against it with the straight landscape photography of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.
 
There are a number of additional factors that have influenced greatly influenced landscape photography and these include the increasing awareness of environmental issues since the 1960‘s. The New Topographics photographers from the 1960's onwards showed the suburbs and industrial parks rather than pristine wilderness and increasing lobby groups and socially committed photographers are showing the impacts of uncontrolled industrial and urban growth.
 
Although a single landscape photograph is taken at a specific moment in time it can also fit into a temporal continuum and the historical issues of locations are being increasingly questioned and explored.  
  
 
  
When we look at landscape photography it can be viewed as a series of trends that reflect upon the wider political and social movements of the time.

• The idealism of raw nature (Pioneer spirit)
• The taming of nature by man (Acceptance and control)
• The pretty as a painting approach to landscape (Crafting photographs to appear to be paintings)
• The realization that the taming of nature has detrimental effects (Environmental issues)
• The nostalgic quest for a pristine and more spiritual world (The New Pictorialism)

Each of these has its own adherents and today one can find photographers who have made a conscious or an unconscious choice about the one they've selected.