What defines landscape photography? A landscape is a section or portion of scenery as seen from a single viewpoint. The 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. 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 forests and mountains.