"Rising Through"

OK, I like this place and have shot it to death. What's worse is spring is coming, so we can expect more from this area. I hope I will discover some new perspectives. Meanwhile, I never tire of the ability to capture a moment as dynamic as this. Ten to fifteen years ago, I wouldn't think of being able to execute a shot like this. When the neutral grads came into the mix, it was possible, but still left tell tale signs of filtration along the horizon and more specifically, in the trees rising above the horizon. With exposure blending, I am able to give the best representation of how the scene appeared to my eyes. Thanks for your input and please enjoy the Larger preview!

Thanks for your time and thoughts. The Larger preview is available!

Myself, I like the look of a neutral grad, but this is really magical anyway. The glow you've captured in the foreground grass is absolutely unreal in its, well, realness. Lovely composition and lovelier processing. I'm looking forward to another spring deluge!

Thanks John. I've seen some of your recent posts while perusing and I need to stop by. What I have seen is really good stuff from eastern Oregon. Meanwhile, I am looking for you to bring us some new stuff from your new "digs" in the east. I doubt I will ever use grads again. I know what you mean, the look of grads gives an image a certain drama with the tonal changes, but for me, they don't deliver when making large prints. My thumbnails may appear flat, but when the same images are printed large, they take on a "realness" similar to how a scene like this appears when you are there. I believe that an image for the web and an image for printing should have distinct looks; web viewing seems to benefit from more contrast but printed images are better with a brighter, flatter look. At least that is my experience. So what you see here would be modified for printing by opening the shadows even more. I generally use the highlight/shadow adjustment to open the shadows, but I use very specific settings to avoid the darker tones going milky. As well, the highlights are also pulled back so the white points are minimal. If I used a grad for this, the tree top would be visibly darker as a silhouette. With blending, the tree tops blend with the lower portions almost seamlessly. Well, so much for a short response. Thanks!

I couldn't agree more with Mark's comments. I am not sure I'll ever use my ND grads anymore either (even though I spent hundreds on the set of Singh Rays and the Benson reverse grads). I am now a complete believer in exposure blending. The other aspect of the manual blending is that it really appeals to the artist in me; rather than just placing a sheet of plastic or glass up against my high-quality lens. I don't even use a circular polarizer much anymore (although I do still carry it in my pack).

 

Now, regarding this image; Mark, this is beautiful! I love the small touch of flare on the left-side limb of the star-burst. That oak has just a ton of character. Like you, I am really looking forward to the coming spring in our southern Sierra foothills! Well done! Cheers! Chris

A general technical question for you: what do you do to pull of that "sunlit glow" look in the grasses? It's something I've seen in a few of your images, and you manage it more effectively than anyone else I've seen. I've managed it in one or two images, but not in a fully satisfactory way, and only by wildly thrashing about in PS.

John, I couldn't answer that with a simple response, meaning it is not just one quick move. It is a combination of things, probably most importantly combining two or more exposures. Obviously, you need a correct exposure of backlit grasses to start off with. If I used a grad, I would probably still be dealing with a dark foreground if I exposed to the right. With an exposure to the left to deal with the darker areas, I won't have to pull so hard on the shadows, which always leaves some degradation of the image file. After blending, I may use a curves adjustment to ensure the shadows have separation from the brighter grasses. I will also use a levels adjustment to make sure I have white point specular highlights in the grass, which make it sparkle a bit. These are of course local adjustments. Like you, I actually "thrash about" in Photoshop as well, but probably more of a controlled thrash. It is important to work from RAW files and to also work on 16 bit files. This ensures that multiple adjustments won't "comb-tooth" the histogram. I know you are a film shooter, so some of what I mention may be more remote possibilities for you. If you have a good scanner, you can certainly work with 16 bit and when I used to scan, I would run two passes at different exposure settings to hold highlights and open shadows, later blending the two scans. Thats how exposure blending actually started for me. I even blended bracketed film exposures with satisfactory results, although there was some registering challenges after pairing up the scans. I say go digital and never look back, but film has alot of sentimental value. I hope that makes some sense for you!