Three styles of landscape photography are recognized - representational, impressionistic and abstract. The representational style is also known as the straight or straight descriptive style.

A landscape is a section or portion of scenery as seen from a single viewpoint. Scenery is the subject of a landscape image. Typically, people and animals are not shown in a landscape, unless they are relatively small in the image and have been included in the composition to show scale.

Some photographers argue that the sea coast, the city and man-made structures in general should not be included in a landscape, and images that do contain them are more accurately called seascapes or cityscapes. From a purist perspective, they are probably correct, since a landscape is a picture of the land and its aggregate natural features. However, if natural scenery dominates an image, it can probably be accurately termed a landscape, even though there may be a farmhouse in the distance, a city skyline on the horizon or a road or path in the foreground.

The term “Urban Landscape” describes photographs of the city taken in the manner of a landscape, using buildings and other man-made features as graphical elements of composition that are treated in the same way the photographer would treat mountains and trees.