New Image — “Aspirations”

Mar
03
2012
by Jeff Swanson | Comments Off

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“Aspirations” — Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Del Norte County, California

Aspirations
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I made this image during a 4 day trip to far northern California to visit the redwoods in the Summer of 2011.  I was in search of some great atmosphere and during the summer the area can be swamped under a thick layer of fog and marine layer.  If you can find the right place that can make for some wonderful photographs.  Fog was the name of the game on this day so I headed up the 101 toward Crescent City from Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.  During that drive you head up over a pass and drive right through Del Norte Creek Redwoods State Park.  I stopped at the Damnation Creek trailhead and headed up the trail on the western side of the highway to see if I could get myself into the high fog that was plowing into this steep section of coastline.  I was in luck!  To shoot this image I found a nice redwood surrounded by a hearty bunch of ferns and nestled myself down low to shoot the giant from their perspective.  I made sure to use my circular polarizer to really make the lush ferns pop.

Here’s some technical information about the exposure and the post processing:

Exposure: 2 seconds, f/11, ISO 100

Camera & Lens: Nikon D7000 – Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM

Filters:  B+W Kaesemann Circular Polarizer

Post processing:  This is another image where nature did most of the work for me.  The thick layer of fog created a huge diffused light source that evenly lit almost everything in the scene.  This image had some dodging and burning to control highlights and bring detail to shadows.

 

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New Image — “Overcome with Light”

Mar
03
2012
by Jeff Swanson | Comments Off

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“Overcome with Light” — China Camp State Park, San Rafael, California

Overcome with Light
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I made plans to head out with my good friend Sebastian to head out for sunrise on a Saturday morning and it so happened that brotographer Lukas was heading out as well so we planned to meet up and to decide where to head based on the conditions the next morning.  The conditions were looking sparse for fog at the Golden Gate so we made the call to head up to China Camp State Park in San Rafael to first shoot the line-up of the San Rafael and Bay Bridges and then to check out Rat Rock for the actual sunrise.

This was one of those mornings where you just show up and things go off.  The light was impecable.  The sun sets pretty far south this time of year so we headed to an alternate view point on the island so we could compose in a more southerly direction than the most popular composition of Rat Rock.  There was a good amount of hootin’ and hollerin’ going on during this sunrise.

Here’s some technical information about the exposure and the post processing:

Exposure: 13 seconds, f/13, ISO 100

Camera & Lens: Nikon D7000 – Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG

Filters:  Singh-Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Post processing:  “Overcome with Light” is a very literal title for this image.  It needed very little post processing, the sunrise was indeed as vivid as you see above.  The only post processing done to this image was some minor dodging on Rat Rock to bring out some details in the shadows and some dust removal.

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New Image — “Transcending It”

Mar
03
2012
by Jeff Swanson | Comments Off

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“Transcending It” — Pescadero, California

Transcending It
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This is the first post of this type, but I will be adding a new post for each new image that I add to my galleries, each post will detail a bit about how I made the image, the equipment I used and the post process methods I used to achieve the final product.

I made this image on a cloudy, drizzly day in February.  A storm system had just passed through the San Francisco Bay Area the day before so I was hope that the tail end of the system would carry with it some great clouds and dramatic light.  I hopped in my car around lunchtime and headed out to the San Mateo County coastline to a spot I’d scouted out a few weeks before.  The spot has some really awesome rock structures, which make for some INCREDIBLE leading lines, but unfortunately they point north-westerly direction so they are tough to incorporate into an image during the winter when the sunset is off to the southwest.  But, this day it was pretty clear that there wasn’t going to be much of a sunset because of the heavy cloudcover and lines of low fog and drizzle that were moving through the area.  I hung out in my car waiting for a break in the grossness and had a 10-15 minute window of nice light and no drizzle during which I recorded this long exposure.

Here’s some technical information about the exposure and the post processing:

Exposure: 30 seconds, f/11, ISO 100

Camera & Lens: Nikon D7000 — Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM

Filters: Lee Big Stopper 10-stop Neutral Density Filter, Singh-Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Post processing:  I shot this image knowing that the final result would be a black and white.  I shot the image in RAW format.  In adobe camera raw I cleaned the image up to remove a few dust spots, added a little fill light to gain some detail in the shadows.  Then I moved the image over to Photoshop CS5 where I did some minor contrast edits of the sky and foreground separately to protect the white levels in the sky while bringing up the foreground shadows a bit more.  This got the image ready for black and white conversion which I accomplished using Nik Silver Efex.

 

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