Net Casting. Guilin, ChinaCanon 5D with 24-105mm f/4L IS lens @ ISOI 400To landscape photographers the American southwest is the spiritual homeland. Yosemite, Arches and Zion National Parks figure among the archetypes. Beginning with the photographers of the 19th Century, and enshrined by Ansel Adams and his acolytes and imitators during the second half of the 20th Century, the national parks, deserts, and mountains of California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona have been the favoured destinations and prime subjects of legions of American landscape photographers.

But while contemporary fine-art landscape photography has its heart and greatest number of practitioners in America, there are other schools, and other venues. The world is a very large place, and America obviously has no monopoly on compelling landscapes. In this respect China and Japan stand apart, with equal fascination and rich histories.

Though in the West we see little of either historical or contemporary Chinese la...