"Synergy"

Winter time in Bakersfield brings awesome skies, but the landscape is benign until February, when the slopes become a vibrant green and the first wildflowers begin to pop. So what to do? I get more creative during this time and look for things that, in most situations, are eyesores. These pump-jacks near my home are scattered across the fields and for the most part, are oily and grimy. Add a stunning sky, and they become almost enchanting, especially the grimier ones. I was heading out to take Kennis to her dance class when Xiaoping called to say she would take her after work. The sun sets at 4:45 and I had to meet her at 4:50 at Sams to drop off the kids. The sky was already singing, but I wasn't about to shoot from the Sams parking lot. If I was lucky, I could get out to the fields before all the color faded; about 10 minutes away. The last bit of fading light did not disappoint. A blend of two exposures to bring out some detail in the rig. Synergy: The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that the combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects...!

I haven't framed up an oil rig for some time. When a good sky ends the day, I get what

I can. Sometimes this is all I can get! Please view Larger. Thanks for your time!!

Bravo !  just enough detail within the rig to reveal its aging without turning it into a silihoutte and the sky makes for  a restful backdrop for us all.  Kudos, on the image and your timing.  I know sometimes you have to race about a bit to capture the light as it starts to change of fade. Well done, take care, rek.

The sky is stunning........it made me instantly think of the final destination of the oil............fire and smoke as man burns his natural resources.......well done!

Thanks so much Richard and Mark! Richard, I have chased skies for some time now, frantically jockeying for a composition. If the sky is good enough, it can elevate a less than inspiring composition. In this case, I only wanted the rig to fill the frame where the sky was radiating from. I had to crop the back of the rig because it had newer hardware (a bright yellow diesel) that would have killed the effect. Mark, I like your perspective. This combination of oil rig and sunset sky can definitely conjure up some interesting analogies, thus the title!

Another dimension to your work Mark,beautiful light with a very interesting FG,a mixture of industry landscape and interesting light work very well most times,very nice work,Harry

Superb and unusual combination of natural beauty and technology! They make a wonderful overall spectacle so fit to each other, unbelievable! Congratulations Mark!

PDE

This is very beautiful image, very well balanced lighting wise, the foreground brought out superbly against the back light of the sun set and with very impressive details maintained.

The colors are remarkable at all zones and do add to the unique composition here, thank you for sharing it and wishing you all of the best.

great choice of light, perfect processing, amazing details. very good photo.

As others have said, I think you've handled very difficult lighting exceptionally well.  Had I been here, you would be looking at a silhouette; I don't know that I'd be able to get the precise balance of light you've achieved.  Great work.

Thanks Harry, Pierre, Rashed, Zsolt and Stephen!! Yes, Stephen, this rig, for the most part, is a silhouette in the "sky exposure" (F16 @ 1.5 seconds). Then I made two more longer exposures, F16 @ 4 seconds and F16 @ 8 seconds. The middle exposure was needed for the darker portions of the sky because the sky at the horizon was still so much brighter than the upper portions. I didn't want the sky to go near black at the top and I didn't want to brighten that portion and introduce sky noise, so I married the two manually. Finally, I used the longest exposure to bring out detail in the rig with finely modified layer masks. The trick is to give it a natural look and a blend without haloed transitions. This requires a fair amount of due diligence at the computer, but I feel is worth the effort. I have yet to find an HDR plugin that gives these results and quite honestly, I actually enjoy the process. It's part of the art; the crafting of something by hand beyond the in-camera result!

Mark, great work in overcoming the inherent limitations of film/sensors to get something that is truer to what the eye would see.   I should have known that some kind of blending was involved, but the transitions are so perfectly done that the process simply isn't immediately evident.  Excellent work, well worth the time and effort you put into it.

Ahhhhhh!  Bakersfield!  Paradise!  Brings back fond memories... what could be better than growing up in Bakersfield?