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A month ago on the return trip from Canada’s NW Territories, I was zipping down the east side of Glacier NP in Montana when this event happened. The sun peeked out and I stopped, grabbed the camera and ran up a hill to get above the trees. It’s a hand-held and I started with HDR processing and applied that lightly and then did more exposure blending from the original RAW file.
The goal was to not have a sky that was over saturated and darker than the foreground or it would look unreal. I think I pushed right up to the fence so to speak as this has the look of a graduated ND filter.
See the Photoshop layers below
I spent about 2 hours in Randsburg, CA two night ago photographing interesting ghost town type subjects. There is a lot of history here but much is ‘modernized’ since it is more of a living ghost town and unlike Bodie to the north, which is uninhabited for the most part.
This old sign really caught my eye with the warm setting sun light and I shot it with a 70D and 16-35mm lens. There was a long shadow from the left side to the right side, cast on the wall from the chain railing that was there and I retouched that out to make this image all about that cool old sign.
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Alpenglow? I have always wondered if alpenglow only happened in the mountains but according to Wikipedia the answer is NO. This was 20 minutes after sunset, the perfect time for alpenglow, and it added a warm ‘purply’ reddish tint to the files which were shot at daylight WB. Processing becomes a challenge in trying to replicate the true color as experienced but then does it matter? Probably more important than processing it perfectly, is avoiding processing it imperfectly where it looks overly processed. Canon 5D, 28-70mm @ 50mm.
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This is from the Oregon Coast and while I had been here a long time ago I had not seen this huge rocks that was split in half. Perfect subject for a near/far approach filling the foreground with the rock using my 16- 35 mm lens. The only processing was darkening the sky a little and a bit of saturation and sharpening.
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I have told myself more than once that I am burned out on Grungy looking HDR and dont want to look at it let alone create it. But that appears to never be true since I continue to create a few HDR images from time to time. This is Death Valley at sunrise and it made for a great HDR and it is not to grungy, at least by my definition of grungy. Which is hyper color and lotsa noise and halos on the edges.
Fortunately for those of us using HDR software, you can create images that look perfectly normal and even push them a little without hyper color and noise and halos. That was my goal here. Add substantial drama. The ground here is not dark like this but rather very light salt pan. The clouds weren’t that dark either, but HDR is famous for making them look threatening.
So carefully moving the settings added a lot of drama here while avoiding over-done color and noise and other HDR issues that can arise. It is almost like a negative effect, and I am happy with it.
This is one of my favorite waterfalls. Maybe my favorite period!
Proxy Falls in Oregon is a luscious cascade of mist and moss on a steep hillside.
I first shot here around 25 years ago and few photographers had heard of it. There was a small dirt pull off on the winding mountain hwy. Now a paved parking pull offs, bathrooms, and PAY TO PARK.
Another version of this falls, shot from the other side, is one of my best selling stock photos ever, when you could make money doing this! Well worth the short hike in there.
Canon 5D and 16 – 35mm lens.
Oh this was so fun! Drove through Holbrook AZ on our way to New Mexico. Stopped in Holbrook to shoot Petrified Forest and when driving through town we saw the Wigwam Motel. OMG–gotta shoot!
Came back at dusk and it started pouring down rain. Perfect! LOL. I did get pretty wet but who cares? I did a non-grungy HDR, then accentuated lighter areas by painting highlights in Photoshop, added a vignette, and a little more burning and dodging for effect. A teeny weeny bit sharpening. And I am done…for today that is.
I have told myself more than once that I am burned out on Grungy looking HDR and dont want to look at it let alone create it. But that appears to never be true since I continue to create a few HDR images from time to time. This is Death Valley at sunrise and it made for a great HDR and it is not to grungy, at least by my definition of grungy. Which is hyper color and lotsa noise and halos on the edges.
Fortunately for those of us using HDR software, you can create images that look perfectly normal and even push them a little without hyper color and noise and halos. That was my goal here. Add substantial drama. The ground here is not dark like this but rather very light salt pan. The clouds weren’t that dark either, but HDR is famous for making them look threatening.
So carefully moving the settings added a lot of drama here while avoiding over-done color and noise and other HDR issues that can arise. It is almost like a negative effect, and I am happy with it.
I am without a doubt, the luckiest person in the world…next to you of course! To be able to spend so much time outdoors in amazing places like this one here from Northern Arizona, would make anyone feel like the luckiest person in the world.
To trek out here and find such amazing geology and then have a camera and tripod in hand allows me to record and relive this forever. My presence in this landscape takes my creative ‘self’ to a higher level of awareness. My adrenaline kicks in. It is so exciting! Is that what being ‘high on life is?’ If so, I am an addict!
I was excited about the leading lines and textures and shot it with a 5D and 16-35mm lens. Little processing was needed.
