One sunset, many photographers

[chiranjeeb]

We all know how nature photographers can be very repetitive. We have

all seen too many photographs of half dome, but how many pictures have

you seen of a single unique sunset? Here are three versions of the

same sunset taken by

<a

href="http://www.scenicwild.com/sw/gallery/image.jsp?gid=2002&iid=da000155&stid=12&mid=dark">

Guy Tal </a>,

<a href="http://www.gildedmoon.com/galleries/f05/index_fall05.html">

Preston Birdwell </a> and myself (

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/3919775"> version 1

</a> and <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/3919745">

version 2 </a>). They were all taken on October 1, 2005 from Bishop

creek canyon (Eastern Sierra Nevada) at aroud 6:30 PM. I thought

this was pretty funny, especially because I assume we were all working

independently of each other. So photographers, what is your alibi?

Where were you on the evening of Oct 1st, 2005? If you took a

picture of this sunset(or for that matter any other sunset), post up.

We can always have a contest: "my sunset is less original than yours."

Incidentally Guy Tal posts here quite often and I greatly admire his work.<div></div>

[greg s]

They are all good, and I think you did quite well for yourself. That sunset was very worthy of multiple photographers... wish I had been there. I love Owens Valley, need to get back there. Cheers, -Greg-

[mark_chappell]

Agree with Greg on all counts -- I wish I had been there, too. Nice job on what must have

been a tricky exposure.

[michaelging]

Nice photos ,what film did you use?

[wild nature]

That comes to show how we all see things very differently even when

standing in front of the same subject.

I myself liked Version 2. My only objection is that the colors are slightly over-

saturated, which on one side makes the image looks very nice and sureal, but

on the other hand, a little less "realistic". I find Guy Tal's image colors more

realistic, but I have to admit that from the "artistic" standpoint your image has a

lot better and interesting/rich composition with a lot more "punch" due to the

color saturations. I am not sure what media was used (Velvia?, digital (PS)),

but one of the reasons why I never liked Velvia 50 very much was because of

the oversaturated colors, making many images look somewhat "unrealistic" or

what I used to called them: too "picturescas".

Thanks for this post, you bring a very interesting point.

Regards,

Cesar Fernandez

[nanette]

I'm not sure where I was on the evening of October 1st but I'm sure it was overcast. In any

case, first I would like to say that I liked your vertical image with the moving trees. You

had the most unique image, even if it was a bit over saturated (that can be fixed). I used to

love taking landscapes but in the past year have felt that it's all been done before, so why

bother? Well that's not totally true because I will still shoot a few frames for my own

collection. Landscape is repetitive and you have to practically risk your life to find

something unique (well, almost). On the other hand, maybe with global change, we can get

some interesting weather to help us (maybe not). I'll keep shooting landscape but there

are a lot of other things that I like to shoot as well. By the way, did you see the other two

phtographers there? I always get bummed out when I see other photographers coming to

the same location I'm shooting from but maybe they have the same eye. Ho hum...

[laurie_m]

Those are all terrific shots! I think the key with any shooting is to stop thinking in terms of labels. I live near the beach. I work during the day. So, my shooting time happens to be early and late in the day (sunrise and sunset). While that may be the time I shoot, and may also be the label placed on many of my photos, I don't think of them that way. Instead of focusing on the "sunset" I focus on line, color, texture, movement, etc. "Sunset" is a time of day, not a thing. Thinking beyond that can be inspiring.

[chiranjeeb]

I agree that the colors in my photograph are a little bit oversaturated and over the top. The straightforward reason was that I underexposed slightly and was using a consumer film: Elitechrome 100. If I used E100S, probably things would be a little more down to earth. The scaned web version is as close to the original slide as I could get.

 

But more importantly, for about a minute or two there was a period of intense red light. While I was photographing, the foreground was pretty dark compared to the clouds (more than 5 stops). Just before the sun dipped below the horizon, suddenly the whole cloud layer (the sierra wave cloud was

dominating most of the sky) was illuminated by sunlight and the reflected light gave an amazing red glow to the whole landscape. The

contrast difference between clouds and ground dropped to around 3 stops and I used a 3 stop ND grad to take the picture with the bushes in the foreground. Unfortunately just after one exposure, my roll was finished, and by the time I reloaded the light was gone. I guess this was one of the rare occasions when speed did matter in landscape photography. I had never seen such an impressive lighting condition before or since ---I was lucky.

[the lone ranger]

Guy, Preston, and a few other photographers were all shooting together at Bishop Creek that day I think. I was shooting the cloud too that day from another location. A bunch of other photographers on naturephotographers.net also posted a while back.

 

<a href=http://www.rwongphoto.com> www.rwongphoto.com </a>

[vivek iyer]

Chiranjeeb, Very nice! Thanks for sharing.

[guytal]

Thanks for the plug and for the kind words, Chiranjeeb! Michael Gordon and myself were actually leading a workshop in Bishop Creek that week and this was our last evening with the group - what a way to wrap up a workshop!<br><br>

It's interesting that we all came back with different takes on it. In fact my response to seeing Preston's image was that his version was so much better than mine :)<br><br>

Incidentally another friend of mine was at Death Valley that evening and photographed this same cloud from the other direction.<br><br>

Guy<br>

<a href="http://www.scenicwild.com">Scenic Wild Photography</a>

[greg s]

"the reflected light gave an amazing red glow to the whole landscape"

 

I can well believe that. It looks like Preston's view of the peak shows that effect. I saw a Colorado sunset once that turned the ground gold... totally magical.

 

As for cloud color saturation, I have a feeling that the intense photos are really not that far off.

[michael gordon httpwww]

Here's my version. Although I rarely expose more than one sheet of film per composition, this evening was magic, so I ended up exposing 6-7 sheets of film on this event of atmosphere and light. I prefer the 'quieter' mood of color and contrast that occured before the intense orange seen in the other images.

http://www.mgordonphotography.com/NPN/wave_sm.jpg

 

Even if no one got this on film, it was amazing just being there and seeing it. That's what it's all about!