"Breathless Before the Dawn"

Well, it was breathless long enough to make this exposure. The grasses easily sway with the softest breeze, so getting them sharp during a 4 second exposure was fortuitous in my attempt to catch them at sunrise. The balance of the scene has pastel qualities that work well with these wispy grasses. Thanks for having a look and utilizing the Larger preview will provide the best detail!

Hi Mark,

Simple yet with a stirring beauty. The blue tones, pastels and colors makes it an incredible image.

Did you do some PP, namely work on colors, hues or sharpness? But whatever, the result is a sheer pleasure to the eye.

Lovely oblique lines on several planes in a great composition.

My compliments.

Regards

Peter Blum

Thank you Peter! This is a blend of three exposures of varying shutter speeds to capture the entire dynamic range, a process called exposure fusion, as opposed to HDR. Exposure fusion has a more natural look, much like how we see the scene with our own eyes. As well, I will adjust white balance, add a channel mixer layer to regain saturation lost in the RAW capture and finally apply sharpening. I apply sharpening again when I resize for the web. These are all adjustments in an effort to pull the scene, as I remember it, from the RAW file. RAW files are typically very flat and bland looking compared to the original scene as they are truly unprocessed files. The pastel qualities are evident because the scene was recorded before the sunrise, which renders the distant mountains with a very cool, ambient cast. I could further color correct the mountains, but I am one who likes to render the colors closer to what they were. This is much like snow being recorded as blueish in color when it is in shade or also before sunrise or after sunset. Many will balance the snow to a neutral cast, either white or light gray. Still, the foreground grasses were also very blue in nature, so I chose to push the white balance to a warmer balance to bring the greens out. Thanks again!

Mark...  Gorgeous!  Add a dense cover of trees and the colors could be the Smokies :-)... Mike

Excellent

***Ali***