Morning Glory
© Leslie Davis
Honorable Mention
Scenic Class Award
Professional Category
2009 New Mexico State Fair
© Leslie Davis
Honorable Mention
Scenic Class Award
Professional Category
2009 New Mexico State Fair
For those of us who photograph, we’ve all found that eating can wait. Getting warm can wait. Sleep will sometimes be in short supply. But when the alarm rings at 4:00 in the morning, we get out of our warm beds, we munch on a granola bar and if we’re lucky, we have a cup of coffee on the 45 minute drive to where we want to be when the sun comes up. But, do we really know what we are getting up for? It’s dark. Is that sun going to come up? Or will it rain? Will I have the perfect clouds? Too many clouds? Horizon clouds? (ugh!) And let’s not forget the wind.
Having the opportunity to shoot a location wedding in Jackson Hole last year, I made a week out of it, getting up early each morning and shooting each evening. What a feast of lush green for my starved New Mexico senses! You know, just being in gorgeous surroundings should be enough, but no, we have to make it harder by lugging around equipment, searching for the perfect shot, fretting over whether we will get the right conditions and hoping we don’t have some brain contusion wherein we blow the shot. Why do we do this to ourselves when we could just sit back and joyfully soak it all in……? (or just stay in bed!) I don’t know. I just don’t know… Except to say, personally, I just have to be out there with a camera. Just have to… It’s in my bones – I was born with the disease.
So on one of those mornings only a matter of feet from the Schwabacker’s Landing parking lot, Morning Glory materialized and suddenly, every other minute spent in the not-so-good-could-have-stayed-home-conditions, was forgotten. Every instance of alarm cursing was dismissed. Oooh la! I’m here for this moment in time! AND I get to take it home with me!
You’ve been there… You know…
Technical Data
I don’t like spending time in front of a computer screen, so my goal is always to get it “right” in the camera to minimize that computer time. Morning Glory is one file, shot in raw and post-processed in CS3. A curves layer to adjust densities, using masking, and painting only those areas I wanted to lighten and darken. Add a little saturation to bring it to what I remember seeing, a slight skewing to straighten the trees on the outer edges, and lastly, the always necessary sharpening. Done.
Camera Data: Gitzo Basalt Tripod, Canon 40D, 1/20 @ f8, ISO 200, Canon 17-35 lens.
In the next few blogs, 5 award-winners of Scenic Class, Professional Category, 2009 New Mexico State Fair present their feelings about taking the image and technical aspects of digital processing…
Our first image is Morning Glory by Leslie Davis. In her email, Leslie wanted to know “Does this work for you…?”
Most Decidedly…
Thanks, Leslie… Well DONE!
Enjoy…
Having the opportunity to shoot a location wedding in Jackson Hole last year, I made a week out of it, getting up early each morning and shooting each evening. What a feast of lush green for my starved New Mexico senses! You know, just being in gorgeous surroundings should be enough, but no, we have to make it harder by lugging around equipment, searching for the perfect shot, fretting over whether we will get the right conditions and hoping we don’t have some brain contusion wherein we blow the shot. Why do we do this to ourselves when we could just sit back and joyfully soak it all in……? (or just stay in bed!) I don’t know. I just don’t know… Except to say, personally, I just have to be out there with a camera. Just have to… It’s in my bones – I was born with the disease.
So on one of those mornings only a matter of feet from the Schwabacker’s Landing parking lot, Morning Glory materialized and suddenly, every other minute spent in the not-so-good-could-have-stayed-home-conditions, was forgotten. Every instance of alarm cursing was dismissed. Oooh la! I’m here for this moment in time! AND I get to take it home with me!
You’ve been there… You know…
Technical Data
I don’t like spending time in front of a computer screen, so my goal is always to get it “right” in the camera to minimize that computer time. Morning Glory is one file, shot in raw and post-processed in CS3. A curves layer to adjust densities, using masking, and painting only those areas I wanted to lighten and darken. Add a little saturation to bring it to what I remember seeing, a slight skewing to straighten the trees on the outer edges, and lastly, the always necessary sharpening. Done.
Camera Data: Gitzo Basalt Tripod, Canon 40D, 1/20 @ f8, ISO 200, Canon 17-35 lens.
In the next few blogs, 5 award-winners of Scenic Class, Professional Category, 2009 New Mexico State Fair present their feelings about taking the image and technical aspects of digital processing…
Our first image is Morning Glory by Leslie Davis. In her email, Leslie wanted to know “Does this work for you…?”
Most Decidedly…
Thanks, Leslie… Well DONE!
Enjoy…
Posts
3 comments:
That's my mama! GOOO MAMA!
Beautiful photo Leslie! I can't count how many times I've sat in a snow storm or gotten up at dawn for a moment like this only to be disappointed. When you actually get the timing just right, it makes it all worth while.
One word----WOW!!!
J
(Judy Clark, Abq)
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