My wife and I visited Grand Teton National Park last 4th of July.
While we were there, we had the opportunity to take a guided tour along the Snake River with Teton Whitewater (highly recommended) Now, one of the things we learned on this tour was that the Snake River was named after early settlers finding markings that resembled snakes all along the river. Little did they know, the markings were actually the Native Americans' symbol for a salmon, due to the high salmon population in the river. Snakes....Salmon, Tom-a-to....Tom-ah-to I suppose.
Our last day in Wyoming, a strong rain storm quickly closed in on the park. We were only minutes away from the Snake River Overlook and I was hoping that I might catch some amazing "post storm" sunset light behind the mountains.
My thoughtful and beautiful wife grabbed our umbrella and covered my camera in order to keep it from getting wet. I didn't ask her too, that's just the type of person that she is.
Much to our delight, we did in fact get some amazing light.
Justin Grimm wrote:
One of my favourites of yours man. Is this a pano or a crop? And are you going to print it the size of your wall soon?
It's a crop. I think sometimes I get lazy with the D800, because it's so easy to just crop the file and still come away with tons of resolution. I also had a killer cloud formation that was way up in the sky, it was completely blowing up with light. I really wanted to incorporate that into the shot, but realized when I was processing the image that I was forcing it too much (I had way to much empty sky between the mountains and cloud). When I cropped it, the image flowed much better to me. If I could do it again, I would've fired off some tighter shots to stitch together for a pano, but oh well, you live and learn.
This is going on our wall actually. Next step is figuring out how large I can go.
gdanmitchell wrote:
A lovely scene. I wonder if you considered raising the luminosity in the shadowed area?
Dan
Battling the luminosity in the shadows was the most time consuming aspect of this shot to be honest. The image is intended to be dark, but I didn't want to crush the shadows. It's extremely hard to process a dark image, while maintaining contrast and keeping the shadows in check. Also, viewing this on a dark background helps substantially.
So, to answer your question, I did lighten the shadows to make them less harsh, but any more and I would lose the feel I want the shot to portray.
Excellent shot! Also, very gracious of your wife to hold an umbrella over your camera, so it wouldn't get wet. My fiance would be in the car at the first hint of rain - leaving me to fend for myself with my camera gear.
Beautiful colors and light. Great job Justin.
Is that "the" Snake River Overlook? I haven't been there in a long time, and those trees have grown so much, they cover most of the river now.
kellyakinsart wrote:
Beautiful colors and light. Great job Justin.
Is that "the" Snake River Overlook? I haven't been there in a long time, and those trees have grown so much, they cover most of the river now.
Kelly
Yep, this is the "official" Snake River Overlook. Such a beautiful view in person. I would've loved to explore the area a little better, but I got there too late in the day.
