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Daybreak

Posted by
Don Smith (California, United States) on 12 August 2009 in Landscape & Rural.

I have been traveling quite a bit this summer but I am now taking a break to get caught-up with some projects and prepare for my upcoming Summer Big Sur Workshop starting later this month (BTW - there are still a couple spots left if you are interested in joining us).

Today's image was captured just east of my home in Hollister, California, at sunrise. One of the many lessons I learned through the writings of the late-Galen Rowell, was to "shoot along the edges of light." We are in our typical summer fog pattern where we usually awake to a blanket of the damp mist only to see it burn off near daybreak back to the coast. I simply drove along Quien Sabe Road in the Diablo Range until I hit the edge of the fog, and as I turned the corner, was treated to this beautiful sunrise through this oak. The mist provided the proper conditions for the crepuscular rays (god beams).

I quickly set up my tripod and used my 70-200mmL at 100mm (at f/16) and captured this image. This is a single frame (no HDR) and was finished off with the help of Nik Viveza (see link below for discount information). Viveza is an incredible piece of software and made balancing this image a breeze! You can download a fully functional version to try for yourself at no charge.

I talk a lot about "balancing" an image in my workshops. It is the one of the final steps in the post-processing stage where "localized" changes can be applied. In my early days of learning my craft, I built numerous black-and-white darkrooms and spent endless hours printing. I employed various techniques of burning and dodging, along with lightening certain areas of our images with potassium ferricyanide. Areas which were too bright needed to be burned down, and conversely, certain dark areas needed to be lightened. This is how an image was completed so nothing distracting disturbed the eye's journey through the frame/print. All elements must work in harmony for a successful finished piece.

This is the stage where your artistic interpretation of the finished image comes through. Ansel Adams referred to this stage as "the performance" with the negative (think RAW file) being "the score." How you interpret this stage is up to you. I'm sure you can find many forums debating "artistic interpretation" versus "literal interpretation," it's really your call. What many of these skeptics fail to understand is that the camera can't "see literally" as the human eye can - not even close! All I can say is if your image doesn't move you, don't expect it to excite others!

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III 1/6 second F/16.0 ISO 100 100 mm

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