Animals can greatly help your landscape images. They add a sense of scale. They tell a story. They tend to evoke questions. It shows them in their habitat. When we see an animal we often want to slap on a long lens and fill the frame with the animal. Now that is not a bad strategy for wildlife photography. Just once in awhile fight that urge and make a landscape image with an animal present.

Remember to leave more room in front of the animal to walk into than behind it. You want the animal to walk into the image rather than leaving it. The animal does not have to be that big because we are still shooting a landscape image. In fact, hiding an animal in there somewhere may create a nice surprise for the viewer.

I had a 150-600mm zoom on a crop sensored camera with me when this hyena came on the scene. I could have filled the scene rather nicely with that setup. Instead, this image was shot with my full frame Sony and my 70-200mm. It stays a landscape image but it tells a story. The animal is not the image, it is just a part of it. If the animal is moving make sure to use a shutter speed fast enough to keep it sharp. Now if you want to show action (if there is action), you can use a slower shutter speed and pan to show movement. Just know that such an image is going to be a wildlife image and not a landscape image because panning will take the focus away from the landscape (it will be blurred).

          For something different, just place the animal in the scene as part of it.