Mark Metternich
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
|
Two days after violent flash floods came ripping through the area (peak of Monsoon season) I was intensely studying the weather on various apps and websites (including radar projections). Taking the info into careful consideration, we decided to chase another thunderstorm, and we were able to get to the location via my 4WD and thanks to Toyo Open Country M/T tires!  Previous chases have taught me that it sometimes takes a good 2 days of summer heat to dry out this area, but not too much, to get that wet and dry combo look to the cracked playa.
Sony A7R II
Canon 11-24@17mm
200 ISO
1/25th
f/16
single shot (not a composite)
hand held
THE OTHER DIRECTION
Technical info for the more techy minded:
Leading a private tour, we literally got chased out of the area a couple days before. Because I have literally lived out of my vehicle out here, about half the year for several years photographing (and lived within 5 hours of the area for an additional 5 years) I knew pretty well what the flash flooding would do here. With this spot in mind, nearing sunset we chased another thunderstorm back here and this time the storm did not ruin the drivability of the area and we were in no real threat of getting stuck. After helping my client to quickly set up his shot, I ran over a small hill to check this spot I have photographed many times. Just as I got here I hand held this image, and right then a rainbow began to appear! I quickly took the shot and immediately, ran over the hill to my client so he could see if he wanted to shoot the spot (by seeing my cameras LCD). By then the rainbow was ablaze and he decided to hold his similar looking vertical position. I remember us both being jacked up (excited) and euphoric seeing such ridiculous light, and straight into the composition! In an age when so many people are compositing skies in from totally different shoots (and not practicing open disclosure) I like to make mention that the image is not a composite, because I know some may assume the opposite.
Post processing: as always lately, I am getting all the work I can done in Lightroom (or Camera Raw) before importing to Photoshop as a RAW 32-bit "Smart Object." Then in Photoshop I create custom masks for much better fine tuned control of tone and color. As a lot of photographers are aware of, when you get that intense red/orange, sometimes it is very hard to control the dynamic range of the red channel (to try to prevent clipping) and yet to represent the look authentically at the same time. This was not an easy image, but with a few layered Raw Smart Objects, the heavier lifting was done. I used my 16 bit Custom Photoshop Luminosity Masks and the Layer Style "Blend If" options along with some Color Range masking. BTW, what is so great about Raw Smart Objects is that they allow us to go into Photoshop with much more advanced/finessed tools than any other program, but still remain in lossless Raw! So, we are now able to get much further down the post processing chain of adjustments/development, but remain in 32-bit lossless Raw much further!
This quality improvement shows up in the real world of fine art print enlargements. Especially wide gamut supergloss papers like Lumachrome HD (the new best super gloss photo paper in the world). I'll recommend it until something comes out that is better, but FM member Robert Park, owner of the boutique fine art printing lab Nevada Art Printers innovated/invented this incredible paper (even better than Fuji Flex). When files are prepped immaculately for print, it is often shocking to see them in person!
After getting saturation right where I like it, I usually back it off by about 5pts in Photoshop "Color" blend mode (so tones do not change - only colors) because I know that wider gamut monitors make images look more saturated than Macs do. Also, uncalibrated monitors can look more saturated as well, and most people do not calibrate their monitors like us color junkies. Also, when scenes are a crazily lighted/colored as this one was, I think it a good practice to back off a hair for more believability.
Lastly, I used a custom variation on Marc Adamus' presharpen (size down, over sharpen, and then size down again method) for Web sharpening. It produces the finest detail of any method in the industry today (and many are building variations of it into their sharpening software or actions). Because monitors vary so much today, I just went with what looked the best on my monitor and then backed it off by 3-5%.
I hope this helps someone. I also hope you get the opportunity to chase wild light in the great southwest during the peak of Monsoon season. There is nothing quite like it!
Edited on Apr 19, 2018 at 02:20 PM · View previous versions
|
