A dedicated landscape photographer may find it difficult to include people in their images, but today it's almost too common to see someone jumping in the air, or with their back to the camera as they are gazing at a view. These types of images are really over used, but you can get creative when you include a human element to your landscape photography.

The most effective way to include people is to use them to help with the scale of the landscape. Take the picture above, for example. It would be hard to get a grasp of the size of this rock without the people in the picture. I prefer to use 1 or 2 humans and not a whole crowd. I like my images to reveal the beauty and solitude of a place, and crowds of people just don't work.

Another example is the image above left . This image tells a story of an adventurous photographer, standing out on the ice, capturing the glacier. The inclusion of a person in this image gives the viewer a sense of danger, adventure, and scale.

Similarly, the size and grandeur of the waterfall (above right) is shown by the size of person who is dwarfed by this waterfall.

If this technique is done well, it can add to the visual interest of an image.  Imagine this image without the man in the red jacket. It would lose it's impact for sure.

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