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Archive 2013 · Blue hour clouds

ben egbert
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Blue hour clouds

This was a set up shot taken as soon as I had enough light to focus, Note the long exposure. It was windy so there is a lot of wind blur, but I really liked the clouds and later shots did not have as much drama. The sun never showed up either or I would have had a killer sunrise.

The original was very blue, I hope I have gotten believable colors. .

Sep 24, 2013 at 09:09 AM

dalongfellow
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Blue hour clouds

The clouds definitely are the star of this one, Ben. Colors look good--not overdone. What would it look like if the foreground was darkened just a bit? Just my first thoughts.

Dave

Sep 24, 2013 at 09:23 AM

JimFox
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Blue hour clouds

Hey Ben,

Nice work with the clouds on this one, you made the most of it.

Jim

Sep 24, 2013 at 10:29 AM

ben egbert
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Blue hour clouds

JimFox wrote:
Hey Ben,

Nice work with the clouds on this one, you made the most of it.

Jim

Thanks Jim. As you can see, this place has some potential. The oaks are red now, but soon the aspen will be in color and one of these days I am going to get lucky with sunrise color.

Sep 24, 2013 at 10:35 AM

ben egbert
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Blue hour clouds

dalongfellow wrote:
The clouds definitely are the star of this one, Ben. Colors look good--not overdone. What would it look like if the foreground was darkened just a bit? Just my first thoughts.

Dave

Thanks Dave. One thing about these early morning shots is that the DR is easy, it does not even fill the histogram so a long exposure makes it brighter without blowing anything. Post processing is mostly about expanding the histogram and color correction.

It would be easy to darken the foreground, but the tonal range here is about as seen in person, albeit lighter than the eye sees.

Sep 24, 2013 at 10:39 AM

JimKied
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Blue hour clouds

Yeah, I also am thinking it needs to be a little darker. Why don't you give it a shot? Love the clouds.

Sep 24, 2013 at 11:56 AM

ben egbert
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Blue hour clouds

JimKied wrote:
Yeah, I also am thinking it needs to be a little darker. Why don't you give it a shot? Love the clouds.

I usually avoid experimenting with images on line, but this one is sort of uncommon so I gave it a try. Brightness of an image is very dependent on monitor brightness and thats all over the map on the internet.

This is darkened about 25% with a gradient mask from the bottom up to the middle of the mountain.

Sep 24, 2013 at 12:02 PM

AMaji
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Blue hour clouds

I like the one with blue tint, makes me feel that I am there.

Sep 24, 2013 at 02:54 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Blue hour clouds

Thanks AMaji, glad it invoked a feeling like that.

Sep 24, 2013 at 05:37 PM

Charlie Shugart
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Blue hour clouds

Ben: Two things are of greatest importance, as you know.
1. Did you capture the scene that appealed to you in the first place.
2. Did your capture and processing enhance that appeal (as opposed to screwing it up

)?
As for me- I really like the scene. And the presentation.
I did a couple of minor tweaks that improved it some, imo.
Mostly it was to give the image a bit more snap without it being very obvious.
Charlie

Sep 25, 2013 at 03:56 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Blue hour clouds

Hi Charlie. I tend to make two versions, one for my taste and one that I think fits a better consensus her at FM. My personal taste is geared towards prints and my preference for brighter images.

But other than that the image was sort of an accident, so not intentional. But it does convey what I wanted to show.

I don't see your version, by all means show it.

Sep 25, 2013 at 04:10 PM

Charlie Shugart
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Blue hour clouds

ben egbert wrote:
Hi Charlie. I tend to make two versions, one for my taste and one that I think fits a better consensus her at FM. My personal taste is geared towards prints and my preference for brighter images.

But other than that the image was sort of an accident, so not intentional. But it does convey what I wanted to show.

I don't see your version, by all means show it.

Here it is, Ben.
Among the variables I find that the look on my monitor is sometimes a bit different than the way it appears on FM.
I don't understand why or how- but it sometimes happens.
Charlie

edited version

Sep 25, 2013 at 04:29 PM

genefixer
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Blue hour clouds

The intersecting lines help to draw attention to the mountains and the knock your socks off clouds!! The long exposure worked very well here!

Nice work

Mike

Sep 25, 2013 at 05:35 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Blue hour clouds

Charlie Shugart wrote:
Here it is, Ben.
Among the variables I find that the look on my monitor is sometimes a bit different than the way it appears on FM.
I don't understand why or how- but it sometimes happens.
Charlie

Thanks Charlie. You ended up with a brighter foreground, elsewhere I was told to darken it. This is the problem with doing on line mods, the variables are endless.

Sep 25, 2013 at 05:44 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Blue hour clouds

genefixer wrote:
The intersecting lines help to draw attention to the mountains and the knock your socks off clouds!! The long exposure worked very well here!

Nice work

Mike

UWA has a tendency to create lines of this nature. I like the look myself. Those clouds were great, but this morning I saw a sunrise from home, that would have been here as well that was so brilliant it would have been deemed over saturated had I captured it.

Sep 25, 2013 at 05:46 PM

Charlie Shugart
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Blue hour clouds

ben egbert wrote:
Thanks Charlie. You ended up with a brighter foreground, elsewhere I was told to darken it. This is the problem with doing on line mods, the variables are endless.

Ben- I know.
One of the reasons I said what I did was because I thought the image needed some brightening in the foreground- and yet others said to make it darker.
To each his or her own, of course, but imo there is a tendency for some to have murky colors.
90% of the time, I don't think murky works. Even the darkest of storms is better with some contrast- otherwise you can't appreciate the darkness.
Darkness is interesting only when contrasted with brightness.
Otherwise, it's just murky.
Just my opinions, of course

.
Charlie

Sep 25, 2013 at 09:09 PM


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