You can't always get what you want

coscorrosa

I went up to Snoqualmie Falls yesterday to catch the falls at sunrise (hoping for a good one), it didn't materialize, so I drove down the road and noticed the reflection upriver, parked my car, and wandered through three foot high blackberry brambles, stuck my tripod in the mud, and shot straight into the sun, which was already above the horizon by that point.





What's funny is I did the same exact thing a few days earlier (drove up to Snoqualmie Falls hoping for a good sunrise), halfway there it started raining, as I got closer, the fog started rolling in, and when I got to the falls, they were basically invisible, so I used the lights around the park and the fog as my subjects instead:







So, in both cases, I didn't get what I was looking for, but I still came away pleased. It seems like whenever I go somewhere looking to shoot X, I end up liking the shots of Y better.

I guess the point is just to go out shooting and worry about the subjects later.

The other point is I suck at predicting good sunrises.

BPerron

coscorrosa wrote:

I really like this photo...could you possibly explain your method for shooting this?

coscorrosa

BPerron wrote:

I really like this photo...could you possibly explain your method for shooting this?

Sure, the first thing that caught my eye was the reflection of the light on the wet pavement, and I decided on a vertical composition so that it was more parallel with the path. I deliberately moved so that the light would be mostly blocked by the tree on the left (which I also used to frame the composition), otherwise the light would be completely blown out. All of the light in the photo is artificial, the light behind the tree, and the light at the end of the path (you can see the big lights behind the fence at the top). All of this light looks cool in the fog, it's nice and defused.

I took three exposures about 1.7 stops apart from each other and I think I compensated a stop down (in other words -2.7, -1.0, and 0.7 using evaluative metering), since the colors were more visible/saturated the darker the exposure. I then blended them in Photomatix (sliding the sliders every which way), exported to tiff, opened in Photoshop, and did some sharpening.

BPerron

coscorrosa wrote:

Sure, the first thing that caught my eye was the reflection of the light on the wet pavement, and I decided on a vertical composition so that it was more parallel with the path. I deliberately moved so that the light would be mostly blocked by the tree on the left (which I also used to frame the composition), otherwise the light would be completely blown out. All of the light in the photo is artificial, the light behind the tree, and the light at the end of the path (you can see the big lights behind the fence at the top). All of this light looks cool in the fog, it's nice and defused.

I took three exposures about 1.7 stops apart from each other and I think I compensated a stop down (in other words -2.7, -1.0, and 0.7 using evaluative metering), since the colors were more visible/saturated the darker the exposure. I then blended them in Photomatix (sliding the sliders every which way), exported to tiff, opened in Photoshop, and did some sharpening.

Thank you very much...well you have a great method there and the picture is wonderful!

tamplum

coscorrosa wrote:

Wood bridge? Love the colors here.

coscorrosa

tamplum wrote:

Wood bridge? Love the colors here.

Thanks, yeah, it's a wooden overpass from the parking lot to the park. Fog can make just about anything look cool

jenweavernj

That last shot is gorgeous!
the orange rays of sun shining through the tree is just beautiful!

Tango

coscorrosa

jenweavernj wrote:

That last shot is gorgeous!
the orange rays of sun shining through the tree is just beautiful!

Thanks! It's actually not the sun, it's an artificial light (like in the third photo), which is why it has the orange-ish hue.

ehughes

Great job, love the colors in the 2nd shot...