#1 I've Been Trying To Get This Shot For Four Years...last Week, Everything Finally Came Together While Backpacking Around Mt Baker
#2 A Lonely Tree Under The Milky Way In Wanaka, New Zealand By Mike Mackinven
#3 You Might Have Seen It Before, But Here's That One Place In Indonesia With A Volcano Behind Waterfalls
The Reddit community is home to 23.6 million members—one that includes everyone from photography amateurs, enthusiasts, and professionals to simply folks who appreciate the planet we live on.
The subreddit was created in early 2011 and is ranked #18 by size as of this article.
#5 So Glad I Got Up For This -15°f Sunrise. There's Only A Handful Of Days In The Year Where The Morning Light Lines Up Perfectly With The Hole In Hollow Rock. Grand Portage, MN
It features pretty much exactly what the community’s description on Reddit says—landscape photography. The subreddit’s rules do state that all pictures must mainly focus on the land, it can’t be silhouetted.
If an image does happen to be more focused on the sky, there’s a place for that too. And if the image includes people or human-made objects, there’s another place for that too.
#7 Caught This Incredible Exploding Meteor When I Went To Rattlesnake Lake In Washington, USA Last Weekend. Zoom In To See The Exact Moment It Explodes In Two
#8 Quite Possibly The Most Beautiful Morning Of My Life. Mount Hood, Oregon
#9 I Camped In The New Mexico Desert To Capture The Milky Way Over An Alienlike Landscape
Bored Panda reached out to one of the community’s prominent landscape photographers, Marcin Zając. Born in Poland and based in Northern California, Marcin is a software engineer who spends his free time chasing light and scenery with his camera.
“After graduating from university, I moved to the United States for work,” added Marcin, “I took advantage of this opportunity by traveling around the western US and fell in love with the natural landscapes there. I bought a camera to document my travels and that quickly became a big passion of mine."
#12 My Photo Of Fjaðrárgljúfur Was Removed Yesterday. Here Is Another Version
Martin has a lot of memorable moments documented on his Instagram. One of his bigger successes—one that netted him nearly 50,000 upvotes on Reddit several years back—was The Magic Mushroom shot.
In the photo, Marcin eternalized a mushroom-shaped hoodoo that stands tall in the New Mexico badlands with the Milky Way in the background.
#14 Mother Nature’s Color Palette Is Incredible. Broome, Western Australia
#15 I Went For A Walk In The Forest And Came Upon This Ponderosa Pine Tree That Had Been Struck By Lightning. I Called The Forest Service And They Eventually Extinguished It, But Not Before I Had Time To Get Some Photos. Near Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Marcin tends to catch moments with clear-blue skies, but he thought the reddish cloud clusters added a whole lot of interest to the scene.
“Before going on the trip, I researched the area to find the most interesting rock formations,” elaborated Marcin. “I didn't know the location of this ‘mushroom rock’, but I found it while hiking during the day. After sunset, I came back to this location to capture the night sky there.”
Fun fact, the shot looks like it was taken during sunset, but, in reality, it was light pollution coming in from nearby towns.
#16 The Witch Tree, Running For European Tree Of The Year, The Netherlands
#17 It Took Me 3 Years To Get A Permit To Visit This Surreal Rock Formation Called The Wave In Arizona - It Was Worth It!
You might think that shots like The Magic Mushroom essentially only need some good gear and a steady hand. But there’s a lot more at play. Like, a lot.
One of the bigger challenges that Marcin points out is just how dependent the shot is on the weather conditions: “I will often visit the same location multiple times to capture it in the best conditions. When the weather conditions are worse than expected, it can be disappointing. At the same time, when everything aligns, there is nothing more rewarding than being there to see and capture it.”
