What makes a landscape photo?

Pine forest, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Lake Bodom, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

I don't know why some landscape photos seem to work and others don't. It is probably all kinds of things, the composition as a whole, but for me it is a mystery. But still I try taking landscape photos one after another. Sometimes I feel that I'm close to succeeding, but most often it is a matter of learning by failure.

Here are two examples from today, where I feel that I was close to capturing something which works, but success slipped away somehow.