A Matter of Minutes

Dawn at Jordan Lake, NC © jj raia

The forecast for the morning indicated some fog again this weekend, so I made a point of setting the alarm, but turned out it wasn’t needed. Peeking out the window showed only clouds and no fog, so I forgot about it for a few minutes. Not falling right back to sleep, a bit later I thought I would look out again, thinking that somehow all the predicted fog would magically appear on cue at 6am. Still no fog, but there was an opening in the clouds to the east, and I decided to head out ASAP because sunrise was less than 30-minutes away. Putting on some real clothes (rather than leaving the pj’s on) before dashing out the door would be the preferable type of attire just in case anyone else happened to be around while I was taking some photos. Drove as quickly as possible, managing to avoid so many bicyclists riding in the near dark of the back roads to the bridge overlooking Jordan Lake, just 13-minutes away from home. Arriving, things looked pretty good but with absolutely no time to waste getting the gear out and on the tripod with a split ND filter, and managed to knock out the vertical, 7-panel, panorama that appears at the top. It was 6:44am when the last panel was taken. There really wasn’t any time to get into the “best position” for the shot, so getting it all in was preferable, just to get something before the light was gone. As it turned out, those seven panels created an image in a 5:4 ratio without any cropping, so none of the additional information creating a panorama was lost…therefore extra detail for the individual spring leaves of the tree in the foreground and those along the line of trees further away.

Sunrise at Jordan Lake, NC © jj raia

In just 4 minutes, much of the illumination, in the clouds was gone since the sun had risen above the small opening in the clouds along the eastern horizon. The pink color had also morphed into mostly yellow with a tinge of magenta, but basically, the sunrise was already over. Had I gotten there a bit earlier, there may have been some extra time to get another shot with the better light, but I can’t complain.

These two images really illustrate just how fleeting the sunrise, or sunset color can be. Even though we may read about that fact, we really have to be cognizant of it and work as quickly and precisely as we can. As it was, after the first pano, I wanted to take some auto-bracketed photos for a possible HDR image, but screwed it all up forgetting almost instantly that was what I wanted to do, since the default for me is to just change the exposure manually. That’s what caused the delay in getting the second image seen here with the previous better light. What happened was I recently saw on You Tube about a way for my camera to automate the bracketing process by tripping the shutter only once and let the camera automatically take the prescribed number of brackets, so there would be no touching the camera and less of a delay between shots, and I wanted to try that method. But flipping through the menus after setting the camera to auto-bracket, I got lost in the moment, not being able to find what I needed immediately, and went back to the usual manual method, even though the camera was still set for auto-bracketing. Needless to say, there were many “wrong” exposures, but luckily I managed to get one that I was able to coax into a better reality.

Afterward, I drove around to various areas of the lake searching for any elusive fog, but it was all in vain and did nothing but waste some gas.

 

Chaos – Structure – Landing Zones

Maple Buds in Fog at White Oak Marsh — Jordan Lake, NC © jj raia

As the forest begins to wake from the deep sleep of the winter months with fresh buds of spring, when we photograph these trees, whether a larger area of forest or smaller details, the photos seem to fall into two separate and distinct types. One type is what can be called structured, where there is an easily identifiable, singular focal point or area that immediately attracts the attention of the viewer, while the other exhibits a randomness, a kind of chaos with the apparent haphazard placement of leaves, branches, limbs or trunks. And so it came to mind whether the tried and true “rule” to have a specific focal point, is in fact, necessary for it to be a successful image?

Wild Wisteria and Maple Buds — Jordan Lake, NC © jj raia

Probably the most difficult aspect in taking, not just this subject, but any subject, is separating out what you wish to fall within the frame from the entirety of what lays before you. What may help to “see” a possible image, is to have a small piece of cardboard, mat board, or foam core with a rectangle cut out from the center in the shape of your particular camera’s sensor aspect ratio, either 2:3, 5:4 or square. By placing it at about arm’s length, you can see what falls within the cut out as though viewing through a telephoto lens; while moving closer to your eye will reveal a scene seen through a lens with an increasingly wider angle of view. As experience is gained, the aid will no longer be necessary, and you will “see” things as areas of rectangles or squares of varying size depending on what it is you wish to include, and therefore get a good idea which lens is needed to achieve that framing. And, once you selectively narrow down your view of what is to be included within the frame, the next question is whether your selection contains a singular focal point, or if not, can it stand alone simply as a random grouping of “things”. This process can be used for almost any subject, no matter how minimalist or intricate it may be.

“Happy Trees”

Spring Buds — White Oak Marsh, NC © jj raia

Whenever we go out on a photo shoot, no matter the subject matter, the usual course of events afterward is to download the images onto the computer, and sift through them all to find the very best ones to process into a final image that meets your original intent in taking the photo in the first place. Whatever the vision in your mind was when you tripped the shutter, will hopefully be fully realized after the file is tweaked, using every bit of your skills in the software you use, along with some imagination to overcome any problems the file may exhibit. However, sometimes we are faced with complete and utter disappointment upon first viewing the files. You might even ask yourself, “How did I screw that up so badly??!!” What was I thinking?? Probably something other than photography!! So on occasion, probably more often than we would like to admit, we get it all wrong. It happens to all of us because no one gets it all right every single time. It may be the exposure is way off, the balance is bad, the sun is shining into your lens, stray objects intrude along the edges of the frame, aliens, or so many other things that can go wrong with a photo, usually do. What happens when there is a bad image in my latest batch of photos? In Lightroom, it is assigned an “X”, and after all the bad ones are identified, they are all trashed. Later on, in a few months or years, I may go through the files again and decide to trash more photos, trying to keep the space they occupy on any hard drives, external or internal, is kept to a minimum.

Of course, I would never have taken a photo like the one above, but for some odd reason,  it was among all the other photos I took that day of the spring buds at White Oak Marsh on the edges of Jordan Lake. Having nothing else to do that day but contemplate my navel, I opted to not “X” it out and take on the challenge to salvage the image, utilizing some new options I came across recently having to do with split toning, and the “Orton Effect”. I had heard of each in the past, but never bothered to really look into them until recently when I found a video by Mark Denney (click here to see the video) that explained, in simple terms, split toning and it’s possible uses, and another by Matt Koslowski (click here to see the video) with a pretty comprehensive explanation of several ways to create The Orton Effect in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

Split Toning Finally Understood

Dogwood and Redbud in Spring – Jordan Lake State Recreation Area, NC © jj raia

Split Toning has always been something of a mystery to me. I’ve understood some of the basics, but never really used it much; usually just adding a bit of warmth to the highlights of an image, but nothing more than that. But I found a simple explanation by North Carolina photographer Mark Denney this morning, and you can see his video explanation here >> (Mark Denny – Split Toning).

I’ve been waiting patiently to retake an image I took a few years back of some dogwood blooms and a redbud tree in the forest around Jordan Lake. The original image was taken in the morning after the sun had risen and a few shafts of sunlight filtered into the scene, and I hoped to retake it when there was only the light of the clear blue sky either before sunrise or after sunset. Last year and the year before I never saw the blooms and wondered if the trees had died. But this year, when I passed the spot, I saw the redbud and a few dogwood blooms and I hoped to get to it before the flowers were gone. I got over there last evening and, continuing to get acquainted with the new 70-300mm lens, I retook the shot (testing the lens performance at higher f/stops) even though the dogwoods were not anywhere near as prolific as the previous image. The image wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but I figured I would put the split toning information I gathered from the Denney video to the test with yesterdays take.

It always helps to add a little color separation in the image if there is flat lighting, as this situation was, for some added depth that it would otherwise completely lack. Cool colors tend to recede while warmer colors come forward. So, by adding warmth to the highlights and blue to the shadows with the use of split toning, it created a bit more separation of the elements within the frame, and a bit more three dimensionality. It’s a very subtle difference, but it is a good post processing tool to have at your disposal to improve any image when you come across a situation without much in the way of shadows.

If you find Denney’s video helpful, please share it and help a fellow NC photographer.