Hello, Luminous Landscape family!

Thank you!

As we start this year, I’m filled with gratitude for your support and involvement.  It’s your passion that transforms this space into a place for creativity and learning. The diversity of knowledge and artistry within our global community is truly humbling.

Our recent survey has been an eye-opener, revealing your preferences and aspirations as photographers and artists. Again – Thank you for taking the time to share.   We had over a thousand responses from all over the world.  Thank you!

The results were varied and we had some very entertaining responses.  

The answer to the question “what’s the biggest challenge in doing Landscape Photography”?   Was…. Can you guess?

Getting to the landscape!    Time, logistics, health, money, were listed as huge hurdles we all face trying to actually get to a landscape worthy of a photograph.

Many of our readers have said they all want pretty much the same thing from LuLa, and one of them put it best: Luminous Landscape is all about emphasizing  “the ART of photography. Encouraging the artistic vision.”

A whopping 78% of you are keen on tutorials, and 68% love your gear reviews.

The average Lula reader considers themselves to be an ABOVE average landscape photographer.    But of course!

It is clear that you are passionate about learning and staying up-to-date with the latest in photography and image creation techniques.   

Nature and travel photography content have also captured your interest, alongside a growing appetite for post-production techniques and video content.  Printing and B&W techniques were also mentioned for us to focus on.

There’s also considerable interest in photo stories (45%), interviews (38%), and community forums (36%).

What’s interesting about the survey and we’re still sorting through the results is how do we interpret the feedback on the subject of AI image creation.  The readership either doesn’t want to hear a word about A.I. image creation or wants a deep dive into AI image creation.   We have some ideas how we’ll cover it.

To note,  the images created in this article were created by AI.  Why?  For fun!  I tend to embrace new technologies and explore them vigor.  When I thought of ideas of what images to include in an article about for image savvy photographers and a survey- I came up blank with what photos to use. 

Because of all this A.I. talk, I thought it would be entertaining to ask AI image prompt creators GPT/DallE 3 and Midjourney to create some images for us.  I pay for both monthly subscriptions (Midjourney 30.00$US and ChatGPT/Dall-E 20.00$ US).

Both programs took the image prompt I gave them to interesting places. Midjourney needed quite a bit of re-prompting and seemed more suited to realistic photo simulation rather than graphic design.

 Both have problems rendering text on the image like “survey”.

Here are some of  the basic image prompts I used for the article for the A.I. models to use:

“Make a whimsical image – a widescreen banner that contains these elements –  something that symbolizes a questionnaire survey, landscape photography”

“Good please do another one that features cameras on a beach”.

“Good now include one with Epson Printers”.

Back to the survey, online workshops and webinars are favored by 69% of respondents.  Forum engagement shows potential for growth with an average score of 1.86 out of 5. Travel and destination photography and post-production content are quite popular, scoring 3.39 and 4.09 out of 5, respectively.

In response, we’re gearing up to enrich our platform with more articles, tutorials, in-depth gear reviews, and post-production guides.   Look out for some alternative post-processes articles coming out!

We will also be updating the look and feel of the place, it’s on the “to-do” list …so be prepared.   

We’re also exploring ways to include online workshops, travel workshops, and things that enhance our community.  

Change is inevitable, and our forum is no exception.  To encourage our community’s tranquility and focus, we’re directing political discussions to other platforms.    Lots of the people surveyed have requested an update for the interface to the forum and update to the categories in the forum.   We are exploring options and what’s important for the community and also preserving our searchable archives.

Behind the scenes, we’re busy securing exclusive benefits for members.  We’re putting together a “VIP/Members area” where it’ll list our perks of being a Lula member.  Deals with Lensrentals a gear rental place are in effect (just used them this week!), and we’re close to bringing another highly requested vendor onboard.  For our international family, we’re looking at partnerships beyond the US – your suggestions are invaluable here!

As we step into the full swing of the new year, I extend my heartfelt thanks.  Your contributions make Luminous Landscape a beacon for photographers worldwide. Thank you for taking the survey.

Here’s to the remarkable images we’ll capture this year!

Click, Connect, Create at Luminous Landscape.

Happy New Years and happy shooting!

Jon “Swindy” Swindall