Nature photography encompasses a wide range of photography taken outdoors and devoted to displaying natural elements such as landscapes, wildlife, plants, and close-ups of natural scenes and textures. Nature photography tends to place a stronger emphasis on the aesthetic value of the photo than other photography genres, such as photojournalism and documentary photography.

"Nature photography" overlaps the fields of—and is sometimes considered an overarching category including—"wildlife photography", "landscape photography", and "garden photography".

Nature photographs are published in scientific, travel and cultural magazines such as National Geographic Magazine, National Wildlife Magazine and Audubon Magazine or other more specific magazines such as Outdoor Photographer and Nature's Best Photography. Well known nature photographers include Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, Frans Lanting, Galen Rowell, and Art Wolfe.

Landscape photography is one of the categories of photography often associated with nature photography. It focuses on images of the natural world (such as rivers, mountains, deserts, and forests) as well as human-made structures (such as city skylines). However, that is rarer and separate from nature photography. As such, landscape photography is an adjacent rather than a sub-category of nature photography.

Landscape photography aesthetics have changed throughout the decades based on the trends of the time. It is closely related to Landscape paintings and is often discussed in direct relation to it throughout its history.

As is the trend in much of nature photography, the focus of landscape photography is on the natural beauty of the world with little artificial lighting or staging. There are also forms of landscape photography that are seen as more artistic or abstract than others, though those seem to lean more towards a macro photography style.

Wildlife photography focuses on capturing pictures of animals, especially those considered exotic, in their natural habitats, and therefore, only became truly popular once cameras were portable. Depending on the purpose of the photograph and photographer, wildlife photography can either portray the animals in action (such as eating, fighting, or in flight), or in more static and detailed poses for identification purposes. Much like in landscape photography, wildlife photography is also often used in magazines such as National Geographics to inform and inspire audiences.

Photographs taken of captive or controlled animals are not considered wildlife photography as by definition from three of the world's largest photography societies, the Photographic Society of America, the Fédération Internationale de l'Art Photographique and the Royal Photographic Society. According to these three photography societies, the definition for wildlife photography that will be applied to photography competitions, is photos taken of any zoological of biological organism (including fungi and algae), in an uninhibited (wild) environment.