THOMAS CHU PHOTO

Photography Tutorial · 2022-11-20

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion)

In today's photography tutorial, Thomas will recommend 3 foreign landscape photographers.

Their photos are very serene and harmonious, using low-saturation colors to create very timeless-looking photos. I believe this will be very inspiring for our shooting composition and post-processing color grading!

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 1

Video

▶ Watch the video tutorial on Bilibili

This is the illustrated companion to the video above. In this aesthetic-expansion episode, Thomas recommends three photographers with a serene, harmonious low-saturation style and unpacks why these photos reward long looking — the support of tonality, shapes and lines, plus the deft use of accent colors. The second half of the video is a music-only photo showcase; screenshots of each photographer's profile and representative works are collected here as well, so you can follow up on them easily.

Start with an appetizer. The photo below is nearly black and white, yet the snowy mountains, grassland, car and figure are all clearly separated — the small subject of car and person stands out all the more in a low-saturation setting, and the frame graduates from black in the near field to bright in the distance, with unmistakable layering (at 0:49 in the video).

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 2

01 The Foundation of Low Saturation: Tonality and Lines

Why do so many photos turn dull and flat the moment saturation drops? The video answers at 0:20: these photographers' low saturation rests on rich tonality and graphics. Whether shooting cities, streets or natural landscapes, their frames are full of light-dark contrast, shapes and lines — color is merely the icing on the cake.

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 3

Take this misty-forest photo: the shapes of the trees, the smallness of the figure, the transition from dark to light in depth all become clearer once color steps aside. The eye is no longer drawn to vivid hues but reads the structure and the light instead (at 0:42 in the video).

02 Accent Colors: Low Saturation Is Not All Gray

Low-saturation photos are not gray throughout. The video stresses at 0:59 that they often keep one saturated accent — like the red-clad figure on the black-rock beach, where a single small patch of vivid color breaks the muted surroundings and becomes the finishing touch (at 1:11 in the video).

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 4

Night scenes follow the same logic: the environment stays a low-saturation cyan-blue while the lights emit moderately saturated oranges and reds — cool against warm, muted against vivid, each setting the other off (at 1:22 in the video).

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 5

03 Highlands and Mist: Two Landscape Photographers

The first is Jack Anstey, a freelance photographer currently based in the Scottish Highlands. His photos are marked by mist, water and low-slung light — cool-toned and restrained in saturation, the very picture of quietness (at 1:40 in the video).

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 6

A lighthouse on the sea, a lone tree in fog, a snowfield at dusk — his frames often keep just one or two minimal subjects, letting the wide low-saturation surroundings carry the mood (at 1:52 in the video).

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 7 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 8

The second is Gareth Llewelyn, a photographer and filmmaker based in Snowdonia, North Wales. His work is equally muted and serene, but with the wildness of mountains and river valleys, and remarkably soft tonal transitions (at 2:25 in the video).

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 9 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 10

04 City Nights and Streets: J.Cabral

The third is J.Cabral, a Portuguese photographer based in Porto whose handle is jccabral_color (at 3:09 in the video). He specializes in city nights and street scenes — the best living example of the "cyan-blue base plus orange-red lights" pairing described earlier: headlights under steel bridges, figures in fog, all softened and restrained by the low-saturation environment.

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 11 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 12

His street photos reward a closer look too: fog flattens the distance into a sheet of gray-blue, and a solitary pedestrian becomes the only high-contrast point in the frame. This is the other use of the low-saturation style — not a feast of color, but room left for emotion (at 3:44 in the video).

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 13
1. Low-saturation photos endure through the support of tonality, shapes and lines, not through color itself; 2. Low saturation does not mean gray everywhere — a vividly dressed figure or an orange-red lamp can be the finishing touch that breaks the dullness; 3. For city nights, lay down a low-saturation cyan-blue base and let moderately saturated orange-red lights become the focal point; 4. For aesthetic expansion, look at serene landscape, atmospheric street and urban-night photographers — they inspire both composition and color grading.

HD video:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1244y1Q7Zu/

Photo Recommendations

Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 14 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 15 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 16 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 17 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 18 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 19 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 20 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 21 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 22 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 23 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 24 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 25 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 26 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 27 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 28 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! 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Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 53 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 54 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 55 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 56 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 57 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 58 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 59 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! Recommending 3 Serene-Toned Landscape Photographers (Aesthetic Expansion) · Fig. 60 Low-Saturation Photos Are Beautiful Too! 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