Around the Night

Wow, fantastic composition. 'Visually' delighful. Creativity at it's best! Warm regards, Gail

Air temperature 15 degees F at 4am (air temp is very important to

night photography, as your sensor overheats easily when warm!), Mono

Lake, late March. 4, 20mm exposures total: 2 exposures at f/2.8, ISO

3200, 1 minute for the Tufa stacks DOF blended. 30 seconds at ISO 5000

for the water. 30 seconds at ISO 5000 for the North end of the Milky

Way above which took a HUGE amount of well constructed contrast

manipulation to get it to look like that, but nothing else was added

there. Light comes from the towns of Lee Vining and Bridgeport and a

small amount of light paint added to the Tufa shots.

Absolutely stunning! This is a very beautiful and creative portray of natural!

Perfect 7/7

great vision for getting the shots needed for this fantastic otherworldly image Marc....

Thanks.  I've been here leading groups 10-20 days per year for years and this was one of only 2 times I've ever seen this foam swirling around like this.  It was the icing on the cake, so to speak! 

Excellent technically superb shot. Top notch! Top marks. Bravo.

Marc,  Superb. Mono Lake is one of the top place for images.  So, I understand, do you mean that you took different images as the exposures you indicate of the exact same image and then combined them into an HDR?  Knowing what shutter speeds and ISO to use seems key to me.  I will look for your response.  Thanks. Larry

Larry, no.  I never have used what most people call HDR.  The blends were for other things, like less noise in the unmoving tufa, the best water exposure and tack-sharp sky.  Everything in my style comes from a fully manual adjustment of everything from tones to color, exposure and more.  I do not use automated processes because I am the artist.  My unique version of Photoshop work involves completely different ways of doing things, of my own creation.  I use no layers, masks or anything.   I could do all of it with the most basic tools but I do no harm to the image quality and I do it all with accuracy and a vision that is my own.  It's been learned over a very long time and works for reasons that are sometimes innate or specific to the artist.

In the sense that some of my scenes record a high dynamic range, yes, I use what you might loosely call HDR, but everything is painted together manually and I am in control of it fully.  I blend (paint) all the time in PS.  This scene had no more than a stop or two of dynamic range though, so that was easy.  My work in Photoshop was aimed entirely at contrast adjustments to the sky, color accuracy, noise reduction and so on.  The image comes from the exposures I listed in my description, but how/why they are painted together as they are is a topic worth an e-book or more.  It took about 30 minutes in PS for me to finish this work and it prints well, considering.  Everything you see here was recorded by the camera on the night of the capture without moving the camera though, and that's about as much as I can elaborate. 

Thanks! 

Marc, artistically and technically superb.  Very kind and generous of you to share your art and knowledge.  Excellent work.

So beautiful, love the colors nature paints with. Love your style and your work. You should do an E book for you have a wonderful way of processing your work. So often the beauty the eye often sees is never really captured without the use of different exposures.  Great work.   Sherry

Using f2.8 I am amazed that you captured that kind of depth of field.

Im just going to go with

AMAZING 

You are crazy buddy. I have no other words for your technique, creativity, imagination and painstaking efforts. +Lalit

What a spectacular capture. The composition, , the effect on the water, and the sky are simply amazing.

Regards.

Masterpiece. 

Excellent.  Appreciate very much about your description of how to achieve this.  Best Regards,

I love it! The Milky Way, the rocks, the swirl have equal aesthetic value and a balance. In a style, this one is somehow different from your other photographs. 

just amazing

thank you so much for an inspiring image and a humble tips towards your technical information and your artistic intent.

Can fine art prints be ordered?