Tree At Sunrise
f/9, 1/160, ISO-100, 18mm
I really think I did this photo a disservice by not giving a more dramatic name, but I always was lousy at thinking up names.
This is another of my recent attempts to make something out of nothing. You can tell because this is Iowa on July 17, 2012, and on this particular day there is no ground in the state that is anything close to this color. We are in a drought that is growing more serious by the day, and the grass is brown, brown, brown. Everywhere brown. I took this picture because I saw potential in the rolling hills and the soft play of light and shadow more than the color.
Originally I thought of this one as a black and white image, since the scene was very nearly black and white in its natural state anyway. But it just wasn’t working so I decided to see what I could do with some “extreme editing” with the color. First I used the gradient tool give definition to the clouds, which were barely visible in the original. I liked how they turned out so well that I went all extreme on them and got some good drama. I only added my normal -10 vignette but it looks like more because I deepened the blue luminance while throwing the green up to nearly 75. I was able to get even more drama out of the sky by nudging up blue highlight and shadow split toning. Finally I added some distortion to add even more drama to the clouds and make it look like I have a wider-angle lens than I do.
Beautiful. Thank you.
And thank you for following.