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This was the sunrise this morning near my home in Wolf Summit, WV. My attempt in composing was to balance the color of the sunrise and the mist on the right side with the flowers in the lower left. After looking at it, though, it seems my eye is drawn more to the left of the photo by the brightness of the sun just behind the hill, thus making the photo “off balance” since the foreground subject is also on the left side. Let me know your thoughts! Thanks!
Lens was at 12 mm
ISO 100
Aperture f/20
Shutter speeds 1/2 & 1/15Attachments:
Yes, I do think it is a little off balance, but I’m not sure how much I’d worry about it. Is that how you like the sky – it looks a little fake. Sometimes if I’m trying to create a more realistic feel, I’ll brush in a little of the original exposure onto an HDR. What did you use to merge the pictures?
I used Photoshop to merge the pictures. I understand what you’re saying about the sky. It seems difficult for me to bring out the brilliance that was there without giving it that “fake” look. I’ve attached another file with some further edits that I made. I increased the contrast and lightened up a “path” to lead the eye out through the foggy valley. Also I reduced the brightness/intensity of the fog on the right side of photo. I’ve also included another composition from the same location. Let me know what you think! Thanks!
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I like the original composition better – it has more “food” for the eye. I think part of the reason why your sky looks a little fake, is because people expect skies to be light, and you’ve kept yours dark. I uploaded a quick edit, where I lightened more of the foreground and sky. However, at least for me, my eye seems to float to the flower; is it the same for others?
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@dhancock, same with me. The flowers really stand out!
Love the shot! It makes me feel like I want to be there. I can almost feel the water seeping into my dew-soaked shoes as I wait for just the perfect moment to trigger the shutter. 🙂
As for composition, if it was possible, keep the sun/hills in the same place, just step to the left side of the flowers to have them on the right side instead of the left side of the frame. That would balance the weight of the imminent sunrise and emanating clouds on the left.
It’s always a struggle to keep high dynamic range images from looking fake. I try to keep anything bright in the foreground darker than the bright areas in the sky, and anything dark in the foreground darker than the dark areas in the sky.
What also might help here is to make the brightness transition between sky and land less abrupt. See the haloing on the right hill? Brighten up the sky and darken the hills so you don’t see any halos. I generally try to make the gradient less abrupt. And yes, it will cause the sky at the horizon to be less brilliant, but it will look real.
And while you’re in PS, perhaps you could remove the tower on the right hill. 🙂
Thanks for all the input! Here’s another shot I took that morning. I didn’t really like the composition real well because it seems like the flowers are too high. I wish I would have raised my camera a little higher to make the flowers lower in the frame.
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I like the horizontal composition myself! I’m not a huge fan of vertical compositions, so that’s probably the main reason… 🙂
I also like the contrast between the orange of the sunrise, and the blue sky up higher.
Yes! To me, I the darker foreground in that last one you posted is much more real, @dan-cope. Whatever you did really helped to make the mist glow there in the valley!
Perhaps it’s my screen, but I thought the upper portions of the sky looked a little too green/yellow so attached a version with it being more blue. Perhaps it’s not as golden a picture any more, but I thought I’d at least see what it would look like.
And, @abie, I do like the darkening only that the attachment is so small it’s hard to see. :[
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Ah yes I like what you’ve done here, James! And you as well, Abbie although, like James mentioned it is very small and hard to see.
@James Staddon I see you did your editing with a levels adjustment layer. Do you mind sharing exactly what those edits were?
Ah, sorry I didn’t see this sooner! I think I trashed the layered file. At least I couldn’t find it still on my computer.
For the most part, in the Layers panel, I think I adjusted the white and black points on each Channel (Red, Green, Blue) to line up with where the histogram “mountain” ended on either side. This removed any artificial hues, so then I added the mask to reveal the adjustment only where I wanted it.
Make any sense? I bet I could put together a little screencast to show how it’s done.
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