The Mittens Dawn (View Larger)

Sunrise at the Mittens, with the sun rising from behind the Mittens

creates a heavy back-lit situation. Maintaining detail in the faces of

the Mittens is all but impossible without multiple exposures.In this

photograph, which was taken at dawn, still required multiple exposure

to ensure good detail in the Mittens. This was a Photomatix HDR,

converted to B&W in Silver Efex Pro, with final processing in

Lightroom and CS5. I toned it in Ektalure Cream and Selenium.

very nice shoot

Details and toning in dark areas are perfect - multiple exposures and postprocessing really paid off. Being very picky: in the bright sky there is a bit of hard change from brightest areas to slightly darker sky at the top. This might be due to HDR postprocessing (at least I'm always struggling with keeping softly changing tones when applying HDR tools - currently usually HDR Efex Pro).

And a suggestion concerning composition: the left mountain could have to my taste a bit more space to its left.

Nevertheless, I'm amazed by the tones and details in dark areas.

Best regards, Wolfgang

Best regards Leo!

PDE

Thanks for taking the time to comment. The "hard edge" is actually a gradient added by me to contain an otherwise blank white sky. Maybe it could have been a bit lighter. The tight crop was intentional, as increasing the space to the left of the near Mitten took away the "near-far" feeling of the photograph and let in a lot more bright white (that's the area where the sun would rise from) light in that area, which I found very distracting.Shooting into the light is always more limiting.

It always nice to hear from you and I do appreciate your kind words.