I have been dabbling with landscape photography [1] off and on for a little over 10 years. I remember following a person on Flickr who would take astounding lan

I have been dabbling with landscape photography [1] off and on for a little over 10 years. I remember following a person on Flickr who would take astounding landscape pictures where the entire image is in sharp focus front-to-back and the composition itself looked like a painting. That set me off on a mission to figure out how to do this. I learned how to focus-stack and do simple DoF calculations, and prevent camera shake to get the sharpest image out of my kit lens. I eventually upgraded my tripod and my lens to one of Nikon's holy trinity lenses (70-200mm f2.8) and saw immediate improvement in quality and sharpness. Then I began experimenting with different light conditions as I was chasing sunsets and sunrises all over Colorado. My photography got a little better but I still couldn't get the "painted" effect. I ended up buying lens filters and lens adapters which got me nowhere. Then I dabbled with HDR thinking that was the most likely explanation and that was also wrong. One weekend I ended up taking a trip to Sand Dunes National Park to take pictures of the sunset over the dunes. Unfortunately, I mistimed my trip and by the time I climbed the middle dune the sun had already set. I thought I'll just stay and take pictures of the night sky instead. While I was waiting, I snapped a few long-exposure pictures during the last minutes of the "blue hour." I've never done it before thinking that I'll just have a bunch of washed out images. When I came home and loaded a few shots into Lightroom I was shocked to find the exact "painted" effect I was looking for. [2] It's not by any means the best image, but it's my "eureka!" shot. A large part of photography is about training your eyes to see something interesting, making unique compositions out the things in front of you and playing around with the light. With that said, the camera, lens and tripod you use make the entire journey less dubious and more pleasant for sure. [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergeyakopov https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergeyakopov [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergeyakopov/37182230034/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergeyakopov/37182230034/in/ph...