The 7 Best Landscape Photographers in Columbus

The Arch City hosts not only several of the best universities and football schools in the nation but a creative district on the up and up. Short North is home to abundant cafes, galleries, shows, and other places where artists congregate to exchange ideas and work. You may even come across some of the work of the artists we’ve listed here.  These talented Columbus landscape photographers have years of experience traveling the world and bringing back unforgettable images that exude emotion. Let us know what you think of their work! 

1. Rick Buchanan Photography

Photographer Rick Buchanan transitioned into the arts after a 16-year career in the advertising field. His know-how of meeting client needs, combined with his love for artistic visual expression, has resulted in some of the boldest fine art landscapes we’ve seen so far. Rick’s photography philosophy comes down to both an appreciation for nature as well as how light illustrates a potential subject.

As he describes it, “I believe that compelling photographs come from a thorough knowledge of the subject and a creative interpretation of that knowledge using light, color, and space.” We love the color tonality that ranges from natural yet slightly punchy and vibrant while still remaining realistic. Rick’s landscape images can be both expansive, taking in wide swaths of national parks, or minimalistic and focused on a single element within the environment.

2. Rick Braveheart Fine Art Photography

Rick Braveheart’s love for the outdoors is unsurprising given his time spent as both a lifelong outdoorist and a frequent artist-in-residence for the National Park Service. In these periods, Rick spends his time alone getting to know his natural canvas and photographing. Having explored over 120 parks and forests within the country, his portfolio is a tour across the deserts of the Southwest, the Rocky Mountains, oceanfront regions of the East Coast, and much more. Rick has an incredible eye for capturing ambiance, avoiding advanced recovery techniques in favor of letting us take in the mists, overcast light, cloud cover, and other moody elements within the scene. 

While often expansive in view, his images have the tight, orderly compositions of a true master landscape photographer. Each element has something to offer as your eye explores the frame. Rick’s work has been featured at the Smithsonian National Museum, US embassies worldwide, the National Park Service’s Permanent Collection, and in several other high-profile venues.

3. Jordan Steele Photography

One of the most noteworthy Columbus landscape photographers, Jordan Steele is an electrical engineer by trade, yet he finds creative expression in the outdoors with a camera in hand. When he’s not shooting pictures, he runs the popular photography blog Admiring Light, where he offers reviews, tips, opinions, and other advice on photography for beginners and experts alike. One of many aspects of Jordan’s work we enjoy is his capacity to cover natural and urban landscapes, as well as where the two come together.

The human element often gives his landscapes a sense of scale and story that doesn’t exist on purely natural canvases. Having spent years traveling throughout Europe and the United States, Jordan’s work is an invitation to explore the Great Lakes, majestic castles, pristine deserts, and major metropolises through the eye of his lens. Fluent in both color and monochrome, he often uses a subtle high-dynamic range style that brings out fine detail and tonalities within the highlights and shadows without looking overdone.

4. Andy Spessard Photography

If you’re looking for a thoughtful photographer with an eye for the lines and architecture of urban landscapes, Andy Spessard should be your go-to creative. Similar to natural landscape photographers, urban photographers pay special attention to leading lines, the rule of thirds, how the sky balances the composition, vanishing points, and other elements of landscape art.

Andy’s work is refreshing, especially in how diverse his lighting environments tend to be. He takes us not only to bright scenes at noon but snowy winters in Columbus, as well as showcasing golden-hour light and even nights lit solely by the pulsing city itself. When not shooting landscapes, Andy creates portraiture, as well as commercial and product photography.

5. Mark Steele Photography

Mark Steele Photography provides high-quality retail interior architecture images for clients across the Columbus metro area. He specializes in shooting interior spaces, and he excels at photographing wide open spaces in the outdoors. It’s no surprise he’s among the top-rated landscape photographers in Columbus.

The sea, mountains, deserts, forests, and skies all call to his camera and showcase his eye for compelling, vibrant compositions that drip with detail in waves, clouds, and rocks. Inspired by the work of classic American landscape photographers Ansel Adams and Edwin Weston, his images are subtle in tone and often embrace shadows. The last moments of sunset and evening rays of light in a canyon are but a few examples.

6. Kevin Michael Seymour

Shooting architecture and aerial photography in the area, in addition to landscapes, Kevin Seymour is a skilled artist. By using aerial drone,s he provides views and compositions of the metro few photographers can match! Kevin’s images are vibrant, with well-recovered highlights and shadows, often shot in bright daylight for maximum clarity and contrast. It appears he is fond of more desaturated color palettes than most landscape photographers, who usually prefer vivid, punchy colors.

He sometimes uses monochrome save a single hue of color, for example, in an image of a group of flowers, he left a little pink to lend emphasis and weight to that aspect of the frame. The Brenizer Method also comes into play in his images, using fast lenses and out-of-focus areas to create a dreamy composition within his landscape photography.

7. Kevin Oakden Photography

Kevin Oakden’s impressive photographs of wildlife, nature, and landscapes are educational and aesthetic, serving as an expression of his love for the wilderness. One of the most observant Columbus landscape photographers, he sees his images as an opportunity to tell a story and showcase elements that go unseen and underappreciated in modern life.

While large mammals are the primary focus of his lens, Kevin shows us the landscapes he hunts them in as well. Splendid sights, such as the Milky Way blazing across the Plains, mountain sunsets, and views of Rainier, are just a few treats within his fine art portfolio.

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