Subject and Story in Landscape Photography

One of the most popular genres of photography has been, since the very emergence of photography, landscape photography. As a record of places visited to the creation of prints intended to be hung on walls as art, landscape photography consumes the attention of not only enthusiast photographers, but also of the general picture viewing consumers. Landscape images greet us the moment we boot up our computers and often grace the screens of the devices that we choose to carry in our briefcases and pockets. The array of bright colours and startling compositions has meant that for much of the landscape imagery that is produced there is a certain sense of, ‘meh’ that has now become the standard response to what was once considered incredible imagery. Why is that?

Is the Upgrade to Nik Efex II worthwhile?

The Nik collection has a fairly storied history to date. It began when Nikon decided to let go the Nik team and their proprietary software based on what they called ‘u-points’. The u-point technology underpinned Nikon’s RAW developer, Capture NX2. This was a fantastic - albeit slow - RAW developer that could arguably get the best results of any programme from Nikon RAW files. As an independent software developer Nik brought out the Nik collection, also based on their u-point technology. The full collection cost a whopping US$500, but you could also buy each of the independent apps for about $99 (if memory serves me correctly). In particular, their Color Efex, Silver Efex, HDR Efex and Viveza were quickly recognised as some of the best plugin apps in the industry. Then in 2012 Google bought Nik and effectively killed off Capture NX2 as Nikon lost their stake in Nik. Google also drove the price for the full collection down to $150, then to $99, and finally offered it for free!