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Pond, Owens Valley (2011)
Eastern Sierra, California
It was springtime in the Owens
Valley. The irises were just beginning to
bloom (you can see tiny purple dots on the
opposite shore).
I captured this same
composition under three different lighting
conditions. The first was during twilight
while the sun was still hiding behind the White
Mountains behind us. The second was this
one as the sun peeped over the Whites but its
light was scattered by a thin vale of clouds.
The last was with bright sunlight illuminating
the white snow fields on the peaks.
It was the tranquility and
feeling of peace, harmony and balance that drew
me to this one. I must confess, it wasn't an
instant favorite. But it grew on me.
Because of the clouds on the
eastern horizon the dynamic range was not
extreme. So no special techniques were
required to capture the foreground and
background. In the latter image with the
bright sun on the mountain tops a graduated
neutral density filter would have helped a great
deal. But it wasn't required here.
The post processing was also
pretty straight forward. I did intensify
the mountain range a bit by adding contrast and
darkening it just a little. And still, the
overall contrast is not great and contributes to
the soft feeling of the image. I also had
to get rid of a cyan cast in the sky to make it
look more natural. I'm not sure how it
worked its way in there but it did.
The final color pallet of
blues, greens and soft browns contributes to the
calm, peaceful mood.
So all-in-all the image
conveys the sense of quiet and solitude that I
was after.
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