This one was made a few weeks back. It was a drippy day during this years HDR workshop in Minnesota. We stopped by Taylor Falls during our excursion and took a photo walk through the park along the St. Croix River. Light was not at it’s best, but we did our best as we discussed with each other how we might work certain scenes to fit our style and get something worth printing.
We were about ready to move on, when someone found this viewpoint. There was the Queen, resting majestically along the riverbank and waiting for the sun. I’m was told it’s not stopped here often. It immediately struck a chord with me. There was something here to photograph. I setup the gear for a long exposure, taking the time to carefully plan and get it right. It payed off with this photo as the result. It’s going to look great on a metal or canvas and will appear in the signature collection soon. I’m stoked.
For photographers. How it was made…
5D MK2, Canon 24-70 L, ISO 50, f20, Bracketed 60sec, 100sec, 260sec.
Along with basics like composition and the fact that the boat was in a great spot, I think the key to this frame was long exposure. The river loped along and light was a bit flat. At a glance it was kinda plain. But a long exposures can change the way everything is seen. I knew my direction here so I setup one composition and then took the time to make it right.
This took some time due to the how long the exposures were, but the long frames were also what gave the magic to the movements of the river. I used a B&W #110 10ND filter to reduce the light enough for the long exposure, taking care to make sure everything stayed still. I was actually concerned that in these long exposures the boat might move a little and get blurred. There was no real wind however and she must have been tethered well.
Come editing time I processed it as an HDR, then did a conversion to monochrome in Lightroom using presets and manual tweaks. That brought me close to the final look, but PS was the next stop. Part of the magic here was the sunbelt toning of the foliage around the river. I enhanced that with careful work in PS, dodging a few highlights and burning here and there top make everything as alive as possible.
In the end I’m satisfied with this image and people are responding well to it. Would it have been more magical had the light been more desirable on that day? I don’t know. I’m definitely a fan of waiting for the right light, but here is a photo taken in what at the time seemed less than ideal light, but as it turns worked out the scene has a magical quality of it’s own. I don’t mean that all light, all the time is perfect. Only that perhaps light that we first thought as bad, can sometimes be used in a way that makes it amazing. Your thoughts welcome… Gav