Day two of our travels found us getting an early start in our 650+ miles travels from Amarillo, Texas to Douglas, Wyoming. At mile-post 748, we left Texas and entered New Mexico at Texline, Texas (you must give us Texans credit for our great imagination at naming our towns). The drive through New Mexico was mostly ranch lands with lots of rolling hills. Upon entering Colorado, we encountered some nice mountains. We were making great time and then we hit Denver at 12:45PM. Everything came to a complete halt. It took us two hours to get through Denver. It was a traffic jam that even Houstonians would be proud of! A little advice here: if you are going through Denver, take the toll road around the city; fork over your $10 to $12 and keep more of your sanity. After Denver, the rest of the trip was relatively uneventful.
On our trip, I tried to stop about every two to three hours and to get feeling back into my legs. Naturally, all the stops were at places that might generate a good photo or two. I got a couple of good shots, but it was not until we got to Douglas, Wyoming that I got the photo of the day.
As we arrived in Douglas, I was watching the sky. It looked like the sunset would have lots of nice color and with surrounding hills, I knew a good sunset photo could be in the making. Upon checking into the hotel, I asked the hotel manager if she knew of any place where I could see the sunset. She looked at me blankly and said: “I think you can see it from our parking lot.” After a little more explanation, she told me of this spot not too far from the hotel.
Sure enough my guide was right. The spot was perfect. JD and I sat on the trunk of my car, ate our dinner and watched the sun disappear over the hills. Of course, I had to periodically jump up and take a few shoots.
I was generally happy with most of the shots, but did not like the darkness of the foreground. I asked myself: What would Joe McNally do? Since my camera was already on a tripod, I attached my SU-800 and whipped out two flashes to light the foreground. JD acted as VAL for the flash on the left and I was the VAL for the flash on the right. I had to put a CTO gel on each flash and set the flashes -2 EV so that the light would look more like the fading sun. I was generally happy with what I got.
Enjoy.
Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8, shot at ISO 200, f/11 and 1/2th of a second on a tripod and triggered with camera’s self timer with two Nikon SB-800 (gelled with CTO and set at -2EV) that were hand-held to the right and left of the camera controlled by Nikon SU-800.
Post Processing:
Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity.
Photoshop—ran nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the foreground to add contrast to shadows, mid-tones and highlights.
I would never think of using a flash to light the foreground for a sunset photo. Good idea. I do wish that the foreground had a little less light on it. I think that would make it much more believable. Nice sunset and nice capture.
ReplyDeleteTed
Beautiful shot with amazing color!
ReplyDeleteIs this a situation where a split ND filter would have helped to get a longer exposure on the foreground (just in case one didn't happen to have flashes and VAL's handy)? I've never used a splint ND, just curious if it could have applied here.
Cheers!
Barry
Nice landscape Larry. I woould respectfully disagree with Ted, I think you lit the foreground perfectly. Nice colors and post-processing as well.
ReplyDeleteGood sunset. I like the fact that you are not taking it straight at where the sun is setting. It makes the sky more even brightness so you can see the colors better. I am with Larry, I like the light background.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Hey Larry-
ReplyDeleteI like this image for a variety of reasons. First being that I miss the Montana and Wyoming countryside and sunsets.
Secondly I like your ingenuity in overcoming your lighting challenge. I kinda of side with Barry that I would have used the split ND filter but this is a technique that I am going to have to try out.
I am somewhere in the middle on the amount of light in the forground. I think its perfect. Where I would like to see more light is the middle ground.
I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to my brain that there is light then no light then light. I think the foreground brightness would is spot on but we need a bit more in the middle.
All of that being said, I have no real issue with it the way it is. I actually like it. But since the discussion is open thats what I think I would do to change it.
It is a good image though because it immediately evoked a sense of place for me. I could feel the slight warm breeze, smell the grass and hear the ambient sounds as soon as I looked at it. So I think it works.
On another note, I couldn't agree with you more about the toll bypass in Denver, I think it's I-420. Worth every penny. I also learned the hard way!!
Have a great day!
Brian
WWJMD - What Would Joe McNally Do? --- my new motto.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting solution to your problem, but if you were not locked into your small strobes you could have used Joe's solution to shooting Ellis Island many years ago for National Geographic: rent an industrial generator and use about 40 Profoto strobes to light the entire Ellis Island. I figure you would only need about 30 Profotos to light this scene. Well, maybe next time.
ReplyDeleteThe Professor
I like the time after sunset. What would have happened if you you had used a longer shutter? A little more light in the middle ground without blowing out the sky? I think that I would have been tempted to use PhotoShop to brighten the foreground. Besides, I don't own that many flashes.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, saturated colors and an interesting composition of the "valley" between hills rather than including a hill (mountain?). This may have been an opportunity to try light painting too, ala David Black, but you would need some pretty powerful lights to reach the middle ground. In any case the lack of lighting in the middle does not bother me, I think it is a gorgeous, serene sunset image.
ReplyDeleteThe simple solution is a GND filter to accomplish what most would like to see. It will of course darken the two hills a little more, but it would even out the exposure front to back, without blowing anything out. If you don't have one, you know one of the other options includes bracketing for HDR.
ReplyDeleteLarry is always trying to find a way to make it right with flash and has been very successful with it. I give him credit for trying something different in this case. It didn't quite hit the mark but he didn't give up on it.
DHaass