Here’s a question which some people have.  Can landscape photography include buildings?  The answer is absolutely a resounding yes.  Landscape photography can include buildings.  Want to learn a little bit more about this topic?  Then please keep reading.

In a previous article, we discussed what is considered landscape photography.  (Read that article here)  While it was briefly discussed there, landscape photography can and often does include buildings.  It’s a common element in many popular landscape photos.

Buildings Can Be a Major Element

Check out these landscape photos of mine where I’ve set a building as a major element in the wider view landscape photo.

Each building occupies a large share of the visible area in frame.  Each is a prominent part of the photo which contains it.  Still, you can plainly see other landscape elements make up the rest of the photos.

Buildings Can Be a Minor Element

Buildings can also be a minor element in landscape photography.  Check out these landscape photos of mine where I included a building of some kind but it is not a major focal point of the overall image.

With these examples, the building are still very much present.  However, they do not occupy as much of the frame as the previous examples.  You may notice the buildings present in this group or you may not.

Buildings Can Be Background Flavor

Then you can have landscape photos where there are buildings present but they are a part of the background.  These buildings are neither a major nor a minor element in the landscape photograph.  They are merely there while the focus in on some other subject matter.  Each of the photos below has buildings in them but you might or might not notice them because of how non-important they are in each respective photo.

Now, there’s a good chance you didn’t notice the buildings in these landscape photos.  Perhaps you did.  Still, the overall photos don’t rely on you noticing the buildings.

Buildings Can Be the Complete Focus

There is a sub-genre of landscape photography called urban landscape photography which focuses entirely on wide scenes of cities and other human-occupied areas.  There’s very little in the way of natural features to display in an urban landscape.  It’s entirely buildings, mostly of the skyscraper variety.  Urban landscape photography is built around having buildings in landscape photography.

Conclusion

So, can landscape photography include buildings?  Absolutely yes it can.  Buildings can be major or minor elements or merely incidental in the background of a “traditional” landscape photo.  Buildings entirely make up the scene of a sub-genre called urban landscape photography.

Have you any great examples of integrating buildings in landscape photography?  I’d love to see.  Please share them in the comments section below so we can all learn how better to use this element of landscape photography.