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Archive 2014 · Twilight Tulips

gnbuzz
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Twilight Tulips

I'm certainly not a flower photographer (floral photographer?) -- not that there's anything wrong with being one -- but everyone around here shoots the Skagit Valley tulip fields, north of Seattle, in April. I'm always up for trying to come up with a different take on a familiar subject.

And different often falls into your lap in these parts. A "sunny" day in the Pacific Northwest means only that, at various times of the day, you will be able to tell that the sun does exist. I must admit, part of me had hoped to get one of those nifty, sunburst on the horizon shots. But the clouds, as usual, had other plans.

I felt like, though I wasn't getting the great color show in the sky that I'd hoped for, the modified light cast an interesting glow on the tops of the tulips. So I went with it. It's kind of a gloomy shot for what's usually a happier subject matter.

Thanks for looking, and in advance for any nits, tips or advice.

Glenn

The tulips seem to be seeking out the last rays of the day in Skagit Valley.

Apr 30, 2014 at 12:45 PM

dgdg
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Twilight Tulips

I'm not a fan of HDR effects, but I do like how the tulips worked out. The sky is a bit gloomy.

David

Apr 30, 2014 at 01:33 PM

Lobohowler
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Twilight Tulips

Wow, I like this a lot. The horizon appears a little tilted down on the right. If the image had been taken from a position a little more to the left, could the alley with the reflecting water have been lined up to point to the sun?

Apr 30, 2014 at 01:42 PM

gnbuzz
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Twilight Tulips

Lobohowler wrote:
Wow, I like this a lot. The horizon appears a little tilted down on the right. If the image had been taken from a position a little more to the left, could the alley with the reflecting water have been lined up to point to the sun?

You are dead on. My biggest regret is the alley not lining up. It did when I started the shoot. This was the last row with a puddle and I wanted the reflections, however slight. Also, if I moved far enough over, I would have captured the road abutting the field, and lost the grouping of the red tulips.

The horizon actually is level; it's the tree mass that makes it seem to skew. I see it the same way you do and debated over correcting a perception. Anyone have any thoughts about what to do in this situation?

Thanks,
Glenn

Edited on Apr 30, 2014 at 02:14 PM · View previous versions

Apr 30, 2014 at 02:00 PM

gnbuzz
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Twilight Tulips

dgdg wrote:
I'm not a fan of HDR effects, but I do like how the tulips worked out. The sky is a bit gloomy.

David

Thanks, David. Me, neither. However, my single exposures just couldn't capture enough of the dynamic range, even using first one 0.6 ND grad, then two. Good thing I usually bracket, just in case.

Glenn

Apr 30, 2014 at 02:11 PM

JimFox
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Twilight Tulips

Hey Glenn,

One day I will come shoot those tulips!

A note... this isn't Twilight... the sun is still up.

I like your composition overall, but I think the sky and most of the tulips are too dark. The cool thing about layer masking is that you can control how a shot is light, rather than a program doing the work for you. While the sun burning through the clouds is bright, you don't want to darken the whole sky based on just the sun's brightness.

Even if you wanted to darken the sky some (which I wouldn't), I would not have the only thing being lit up being the immediate tulips. It just doesn't look naturally lit. I do like some of that rim lighting on the tulips edges in the foreground, but the rest of the tulips don't have to go dark for that to happen. So for me, brighten the sky, brighten the rest of the tulips and let's see what you have.

Jim

Apr 30, 2014 at 03:33 PM

Danpbphoto
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Twilight Tulips

Lovely Glen!
The subdued sunlight filtered through those glorious clouds lends the image lighting on the subjects to be a tad dark. I like it!
It accents the composition. Not all compositions require the "exact" amount of exposure to be dynamic. That is what photography is all about. Just look at the photo mags of late. This type of mood is going strong.
Good job!
Dan

Apr 30, 2014 at 04:23 PM

dpbingham
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Twilight Tulips

Great image. Wondering if you did a focus stack to get the depth of field from front to back?

Apr 30, 2014 at 05:31 PM

Jonathan Huynh
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Twilight Tulips

Lovely shot.

Apr 30, 2014 at 09:34 PM

gnbuzz
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Twilight Tulips

JimFox wrote:
Hey Glenn,

One day I will come shoot those tulips!

A note... this isn't Twilight... the sun is still up.

I like your composition overall, but I think the sky and most of the tulips are too dark. The cool thing about layer masking is that you can control how a shot is light, rather than a program doing the work for you. While the sun burning through the clouds is bright, you don't want to darken the whole sky based on just the sun's brightness.

Even if you wanted to darken the sky some (which I wouldn't), I would not have the only...Show more →

Jim,

I really appreciate the feedback! The trouble is, you may know more about this image than I did (even though I took it).

I do remember thinking the whole scene was a bit dark. But I only can recount what my layers tell me, and I did use masking to lighten the tulip fields, believe it or not. And I did so uniformly, so the way the light is falling on them is the way they did in real life. I can confirm that with the non-bracketed shots I took before these. I had my camera low in the fields because I thought I could better catch the rim lighting from that angle.

So ... do you suggest using masking to all but the foreground tulips? That bump, bump, bump sound is my head pounding against the ceiling of my processing skills

Thanks again,
Glenn

Apr 30, 2014 at 10:34 PM

gnbuzz
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Twilight Tulips

Danpbphoto wrote:
Lovely Glen!
The subdued sunlight filtered through those glorious clouds lends the image lighting on the subjects to be a tad dark. I like it!
It accents the composition. Not all compositions require the "exact" amount of exposure to be dynamic. That is what photography is all about. Just look at the photo mags of late. This type of mood is going strong.
Good job!
Dan

Thanks, Dan. See Jim Fox's post because he makes valid points. I also feared that the whole scene was too dark, but my friends (photo experts that they are) kept saying they liked it because they hadn't seen the fields shot this way. The more I sat with this image, the more I started liking it. But I will try to figure out lightening up the background, just so see the difference.

Glenn

Apr 30, 2014 at 10:38 PM

gnbuzz
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Twilight Tulips

dpbingham wrote:
Great image. Wondering if you did a focus stack to get the depth of field from front to back?

Thanks! I used old-fashioned hyperfocal distance.

Apr 30, 2014 at 10:45 PM

gnbuzz
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Twilight Tulips

Jonathan Huynh wrote:
Lovely shot.

Thanks, Jonathan!

Apr 30, 2014 at 10:45 PM

IndyFab
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Twilight Tulips

Beautiful with an enjoyable perspective !!

May 01, 2014 at 12:34 AM

JimFox
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Twilight Tulips

Hey Glenn,

Yeah... just because a shot is different, doesn't make it good... I think sometimes the quest for "new" and "different" can make us blind to the realities of our shot. As for your shot, yes, I would try to use a layer mask that excludes the more lit up area in the foreground and will effect the rest of the shot. And try to use Shadow Recovery to brighten it up a bit. The reason I say that is, it finally hit me exactly what is off with that darker areas of the shot and that is they are not just darker, they are black and that is not a natural look... so perhaps the Shadow Recovery can lighten that black? Not sure. Perhaps, and I hate to suggest it, because it was the HDR that drug that black into the shot, it's what it most often does, that starting fresh and just using a layer mask in the first place might be the best solution.

Jim

May 01, 2014 at 12:45 AM

WalterF
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Twilight Tulips

Nice photo, very dramatic.

Walt

May 01, 2014 at 06:19 AM

Tuan Le
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Twilight Tulips

It is a bit darker than it should be as Jim mentioned but it does give the image some drama and a gloomy feel. Probably won't feel the same at all once you lighten it up but it'll be interesting to compare the results.

May 01, 2014 at 07:23 AM

Justin Grimm
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Twilight Tulips

Great comp and conditions. I agree with the entire bottom half of the image being way too bright though. A very simple tell here is that the reflection in the water and the mud overall is way brighter then the sky. That rarely happens unless a graduated filter or filter affect is to strong. I think the concept of keeping the scene dark is great, but the application could be more refined. Darkening everything including the ground and reflection, then reworking the highlights back into the tops of the flowers would look more natural and have a more effective lighting effect imo.

May 01, 2014 at 10:18 AM

gnbuzz
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Twilight Tulips

Jim, Justin, Tuan & everyone else,

First of all, thank you so much for the feedback. I posted an image from Rocky Mountain National Park a few months ago and because of advice from Jim Fox and Scott Kroeker, I was able to make edits that led to it being published in Outdoor Photographer magazine. I can't tell you how thrilling that was. I was a longtime sportswriter with many awards and national publications, then a sports photographer with many national publications, ESPN and even a photo at the Smithsonian. But, outdoors, I feel like a "real" photographer and budding artist, and, doing this less than a year, I find the mentoring and generosity of time to be extraordinary at FM.

Back to this image ... Jim and Justin, I totally get it. As I mentioned in another post, at some point the background part of the fields got dark, unexpectedly and unintentionally. I wracked my brain many hours last night, and then started from scratch and discovered where it happened: in Photomatix (is everyone going to laugh at me for using this software?). The image it outputs is not the same as in preview mode. After accepting the tonemapping, an image with "blacker blacks" is kicked out.

So ... I took the single shot I made, right before the bracketed sequence, and came up with these. The first is more like I remember the scene. The second is brightened up, just for comparison. I just added the original for comparison. Whether you like the darker or brighter version, I think it's easy to see the lighting is more balanced. Whatever other issues there are with these images are the product of the limitations of my processing skills.

I've already been trying to move away from HDR, but this experience hastens it.

Glenn

1. Moody Tulips.

2. Brightened Tulips.

3. The original edit.

Edited on May 01, 2014 at 11:24 AM · View previous versions

May 01, 2014 at 11:18 AM

ckcarr
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Twilight Tulips

I really like these as is!
Very nice.

May 01, 2014 at 11:19 AM

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