Over this past weekend, I had this desire to travel west. I went through many different terrains and tried to photograph what my eye saw to the best of my ability. The three photos below are in my opinion the best three I took away from my trip. I'd love suggestions on what you might do differently, or if something seems off.
The first and third are nice. All are clean and sharp. But the second grabs my attention. It reminds me of Ansel Adams' moonrise shot. For your consideration, I whipped up a quick B&W conversion:
You're dead right, Phillip. Especially in your monochrome. Could've cloned the moon to the left, though.
I agree with it looking like Ansel shot, didn’t even think of it until you said that, I’ll definitely have to play with it in black and white and see how it looks!
Hi Daniel, i like the mood of the image. i equally like Phillip spotting the opportunity of seeing fantastic BW.
I really like 1 and 2. The first screams Texas! I have a lot of shots like this where I was hoping for a great sunrise or sunset, but the clouds end up a bit too thick. If you are using Lightroon, I might try to bring up the foreground exposure with a graduated filter, and maybe try to get a little more out of the sky with a separate grad filter but playing with a little saturation and highlights.
I am with Phillip on 2. Great Shot! Would you post up your lens settings?
Shot 2:
Was a blend using luminosity masks based off three exposures. Shot on my Canon 7D with a 10-22mm.
Exposure 1:
Exposure 1/6 sec at f / 11
ISO 100
10mm
Exposure 2:
Exposure 0.3 sec at f / 11
ISO 100
10mm
Exposure 3:
Exposure 0.6 sec at f / 11
ISO 100
10mm
I used Exposure 3 as my base as exposure 1 and 2 were shot under to really catch the color of the clouds and the sky.
Thanks! I use auto aperture bracketing with my camera, but it is adjusting aperture and shutter with each exposure. I use photomatix to stack them, but I don't get results like that. I need to read up on your method. The result was awesome!
Hi Daniel,. Nice work. Here are some questions and suggestions.
#1. Something isn't adding up for me. At first this was my favorite but something keeps pricking my eye. Question - the sun seems to be setting behind the trees but the barn is lit from the left and shadows also are from a left-side light - is the sunset real? No offense intended! Just feeling like something is not jiving here.
#2. Love it.
#3. The foreground is very uniformly lit for such low evening light. Long exposure will surely produce this with the beautiful colors you are getting so this is not an issue but I might bump the shadows here a tiny bit to avoid a general reaction in the viewer of 'where is this brightness coming from?'
My friends here have referred to me as Ms Picky, and it can be true! But I'm only this picky when the images are this good!
:)
#1 You’d be right about the sunset being overlaid on the background. However that is the real sunrise for that day. I shot the sunrise right across the road at the field to the left of the barn. I thought I could create a imagine if that I hoped to have seen that morning but the sun never directly sets behind the barn at any time of the year. I appreciate you pointing out how it looks odd like that, you saw something that I didn’t.
#2 and 3
Each of these shots where shot with multiple exposures and the blended together in post to create what my eyes actually saw that morning but my camera could not truly see in one shot
They are great! I have no issue with multiple exposure to get the shot we want. Sometimes it works well (like in 2 and 3) and sometimes is doesn't. HOWEVER - some really good photographers didn't mention it about number one so I would not let it stop you from using this image. It is beautiful. And - it is art! We get to make of it what we want.
:)
They're all impressive, Daniel! I like the first. For some reason, the way the white panel on the "flag" blends with the sky, so that at first I thought the building had a really odd shape, particularly appeals.
Reading Ruth's comment and your reply, maybe it is that slightly surreal quality that makes the image oddly compelling.