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Spring Storm, Alabama Hills (2011)
Eastern Sierra, California
Alabama Hills - I usually just
take workshop participants to the arch and call
it 'Good.' Photographers are really
interested in the arch. But this year the
arch was sort of an afterthought - not the main
attraction at all. And what a fortunate
thing that was.
Because we had weather.
A huge storm was sitting over the Sierra Nevada
range and the Owens Valley to the east where we
were. And for two days the southern edge
of the storm was right above us which made for
some fantastic light and opportunities.
On this morning we were met
with a spattering of light rain as we got out of
the car. But it didn't last. I
thought it had ended - until I saw the first
rainbow to the west up against the mountain
range. The rainbows came and went as the
sun slipped out from behind clouds and then
ducked back behind them again.
Then this double rainbow
appeared. Everything happened so fast I
didn't have time to think. I tried all different
kinds of compositions - with the rainbows in the
center, with them to the left arching into the
frame and with them to the right arching out of
the frame. There was no time to
contemplate the best composition so I tried one
after another. Vertical, horizontal, zoom
in, zoom out, and on and on.
It wasn't until I got home
that I selected this composition. I recall
thinking when I captured it, "This breaks a lot
of rules but I'll do it anyway." The
biggest rule it breaks is having a line that
leads out of the frame - actually, two lines in
this case. But I am a bit of a rule
breaker if you really must know.
There are several things I
like about this composition. I do in fact
like the rainbows leading out of the frame (told
you I was a rule breaker). I also like the
strong diagonal lines in the clouds that clash
with the curved lines of the rainbows.
Then that spot of sunlight to the left down in
the valley several miles away gives the whole
image a feeling of depth and grandeur.
The biggest exposure challenge
was to make sure that I held the exposure on the
sunlit clouds. Highlight clipping
would have been fatal. So I paid close
attention to the RGB histogram to ensure there
was not highlight clipping in any of the
channels, especially red.
Back in the digital darkroom I
cropped off a little of the bottom so that the
nearby rocks were closer to the bottom 1/3rd
line. From there on it was a matter of
adjusting tonalities to express the drama of the
moment. I did a lot of local adjustments
in Photoshop to brighten one area, darken
another and adjust contrast in yet another.
Besides the double rainbow I wanted the bright
area i the distance and the wind-torn clouds to
be focal points.
I played around quite a bit
with hue. I finally decided on a slightly
blue cast for the dark clouds. And the
bright spot to the left ended up balancing
between yellow and orange-red.
In the end this is a
photograph that captures a wild, grand morning
in the Alabama Hills.
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