Today was one of those days where I didn’t think I was going to come up with any shots worth keeping as it had a stressful start. Despite getting up early enough – add in equipment misplacement issues and navigational issues in getting here to throw off your timing completely.
Something I have tried to teach myself is to try to make the best of any particular situation. I missed some of the early morning opportunities, but there were still images that could be made.
Shooting into the sun can be quite problematic for so many reasons – exposure is tricky, lens flare is almost always an issue, and quite frequently a lot of other details seem to end up either blown out or lost in shadows. I think they can work particularly well when the sun is partially blocked by some other object. In this case, I intentionally placed the sun behind some of the distant trees to control the flare a bit. Fortunately there was also a Wood Lily in nice condition where I could align the lily, the sunburst, and also have the distant tree catching some backlight. This scene is actually a blend of 5 exposures that I bracketed in 1 stop increments.
That is an unbelievable shot. Enjoying your pics.
Thanks Ron!
That is awesome Mark! You did a great job with the blend – I like the fact that it doesn’t have that HDR cartoon like look.
Thank you everyone!
That is truly beautiful.
Wonderful image! I like how the lily mimics the sunburst. The exposure is very lifelike. If anything it seems that working digitally has allowed a more truthful representation of what and how we see.
Beautiful image Mark, the Lily adds a striking anchor to this shot !!
Good observation Anita. That was actually something I worried about-the sunburst being too dominant. I hope the attempt to balance them is apparent in the image.
I just sat in amazement drinking this in for a time. It wasn’t easy competing with that sunburst, but the lily is clearly up to the task.
It’s a bit comforting to know that it took five exposures to put together this beautiful piece. Otherwise, I might have been tempted to give up after seeing this. Knowing I would never get that exposure would have been mighty discouraging. Still, the way you succeeded in bringing those exposures together is intimidating enough. This is inspiring.
Earl – don’t let the image fool you – stressful starts to a morning normally throwing the photo mojo way out of wack! Thanks though!
Thanks! I merged the exposures using Photomatix Pro. It does such a nice job on tricky situations like this. Even if I used a ND Grad for the sky/sun part, I think I would have ended up with exposure trouble on the sunbeams in the midground.
Tony Sweet has a discount code for this software for those that are interested:
http://web.me.com/tonysweetphoto/tonysweet_blog/Blog/Blog.html
Mark, wonderful composition and perfect situation for multiple exposures. You obviously work well with “stressful starts.” 😉 That Wood Lily is a stand-out in the photo, capturing the eye immediately.
Amazing image Mark! Everything’s just perfect here. The lily simply pops up from the green foliage.
What a lovely image! How did you merge the five exposures?