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And a Pano...
#1

..Well, a faux pano really, achieved only by cropping.
Now, I'm not saying this "works" in terms of leading the eye in compositionally, but I did intend it to be at least an exploration of textures. To this end I wished to minimise colour(as arguably a distraction) and maximise the contrast within tones. Thus, I visualised the equivalent of something like red-filtered black and white film..perhaps even push-processed or approaching something like Konica's Infrared film(I'm not sure if this is even about any more..?..)
As usual, here's what I did.
Composed, whilst knowing in advance what I wanted the final result to be: I always find it surprising that many photographers do not "see" in advance in their mind's eye, what the final shot will be, be it colour or monochrome. I stress that I consider such people extremely skilled: I've absolutely no idea how some other folks' work turns out so excellently, let alone know how to ape it! It's only by having the result in my mind to begin with, that I know what to do to get there...I'd be stumped if not, a bit like driving to somewhere I don't recognise without a map.
Anyway, philosophy aside: I wanted the width of my 21mm, with it at maximum definition. That happens to be around f5.6 without question with this lens. I could have gone for f11: f11 is the aperture that gives the best correlation between edge, corner and centre with the lens.
However, this would have involved either getting the tripod(too cold and I was too lazy) or upping the ISO. Thus I chose f5.6(f5.7 to be precise) at ISO 100: I knew that depth of field would not be an issue, as most of the "subject" was effectively within the same focal plane. This gave me a shutter speed of 1/99s, more than enough to counteract the gusting wind and resulting camera-shake.

After converting to a high-saturation RGB tif I cropped away some hot spots in the sky and some blurry foreground, then boosting reds and blues by differing amounts in duplicate layers: knowing the effect of "red filtration" I knew that boosting and lightening reds would appear in mono as white, and that darkening/saturating blues would multiply blacks.
On this gaudy. colour mess I placed a black grad from the sky to just under the hillsides with the gradient tool...I did this either in Soft Light or Overlay mode, varying opacity on a duplicate layer to suit.
I flattened this, repeating the same, this time placing the grad from foreground to midground.
Flatten, resize to web( I never let Photoshop do this), add a tad of smart sharpen on a duplicate layer, erase what is too sharp(!), flatten, add the sig(I'd saved the jpeg of my signature I scanned in, as a brush, folks! One dab = instant sig.)

Job done. (And now you know pretty much all my secrets!)

[Image: 3001pano_websig.jpg]

All my stuff is here: www.doverow.com
(Just click on the TOP RIGHT buttons to take you to my Image Galleries or Music Rooms!)
My band TRASHVILLE, in which I'm lead guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mU6qaNx08
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#2

Another awesome shot. You are really developing a highly individual style with these B&Ws - pretty much as good as anybody I have seen including some of the old masters (lookin' at you Ansel...).
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#3

Flows like lava--may have been lava.

Nikon D3100 with Tokina 28-70mm f3.5, (I like to use a Vivitar .43x aux on the 28-70mm Tokina), Nikkor 10.5 mm fisheye, Quanteray 70-300mm f4.5, ProOptic 500 mm f6.3 mirror lens. http://donschaefferphoto.blogspot.com/
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#4

Gracious as ever Rob, thanks. Smile
That's an interesting observation Don. These rocks here (I think) are predominantly sedimentary(limestone, sandstone)...the slowish and flowing undulations are down to past glacier-action, eroding and chafing the hills in ice-ages past. The true igneous, volcanic and "lava-formed" rocks lie further to the north(...and the ones in Scotland where 2 vast tectonic plates meet are spectacular....) but their immense resistance to erosion allows their craggy looks to appear as if made yesterday.

All my stuff is here: www.doverow.com
(Just click on the TOP RIGHT buttons to take you to my Image Galleries or Music Rooms!)
My band TRASHVILLE, in which I'm lead guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mU6qaNx08
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#5

WOW! I loved it so much... What a beautiful and impressive photograph. You are amazing dear Zig, once again you fascinated me. Thank you, I missed your beautiful photographs... How nice to watch them again...

Have a nice day,
with my love,
nia

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”

Ansel Adams



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#6

very nice shot Zig!
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