Otto Berkeley
Aether
After several interior projects involving complex Pen Tool selections and refined luminosity masking in Photoshop, it was fun to get away from architectural photography and to return to Richmond Park for a few autumnal images. I was mostly shooting for fun -- scouting new locations and making friends with deer along the way -- but on one morning visit, when the skies were clear and the wind speed exceptionally low, it was a joy to revisit the Pen Ponds for a misty and quite surreal sunrise.
My main aim with this image was to convey the depth of the landscape and the density of the mist and fog which often build up around the two lakes at the centre of the park. Using a tree which extends from the shore and out across the water as a foreground element, I found a vantage point that included two trees in the water that I've photographed on several occasions, as well as a clear view of the warm light emerging over the hills on the horizon. I continued shooting for about 20 minutes, using a 10-stop filter and varying the shutter speed between one and three minutes, adjusting the ISO and aperture as I went along to compensate for the increasing light levels as the sun rose.
The scene changed remarkably in that small amount of time as the fog intensified, and in the end I used a mixture of luminosity masks and gradient masks to splice and blend my exposures together, using the foggiest exposures for the background and the most visible exposures for the foreground, along with an exposure taken moments before the sun appeared above the hills in the distance. Similarly, when editing and colour-grading the image, I split the workflow between these three elements, emphasising the colder and more obscure tones where the lake and trees vanished into the distance, which I felt contrasted nicely with the clarity of the branches in the foreground and with the golden tones across the water where warm light was reflecting. Most of this phase of the workflow was achieved using Curves, Colour Balance and Gradient Map adjustments, with luminosity masks and the Apply Image function to target the adjustments between the distant shadows and the highlights above the hills. I also gently emphasised the fog at the centre of the frame by duplicating the original layer, setting the blend mode to Screen and using a reflective gradient mask that excluded the shadows and highlights -- essentially brightening the midtones along the shore where the fog was most visible.
The post-processing beyond this was minimal because I wanted as clean and low-contrast a finish as possible to emphasise the natural drama of the scene. I used very sparing amounts of Nik Colour Efex Pro's Pro Contrast and Detail Extractor filters to selectively emphasise the foreground branches, as well as Silver Efex Pro's Soft Contrast slider -- which was then set to the Luminosity blend mode -- to ensure a smooth transition between warm and cold tones across the sky and water. Ultimately -- and perhaps ironically -- the challenge amid these many incremental adjustments was to reflect the simplicity of the scene, and to convey the elemental magic that was unfolding before me during this remarkable sunrise.
You can also connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, 500px and Google+.
Aether
After several interior projects involving complex Pen Tool selections and refined luminosity masking in Photoshop, it was fun to get away from architectural photography and to return to Richmond Park for a few autumnal images. I was mostly shooting for fun -- scouting new locations and making friends with deer along the way -- but on one morning visit, when the skies were clear and the wind speed exceptionally low, it was a joy to revisit the Pen Ponds for a misty and quite surreal sunrise.
My main aim with this image was to convey the depth of the landscape and the density of the mist and fog which often build up around the two lakes at the centre of the park. Using a tree which extends from the shore and out across the water as a foreground element, I found a vantage point that included two trees in the water that I've photographed on several occasions, as well as a clear view of the warm light emerging over the hills on the horizon. I continued shooting for about 20 minutes, using a 10-stop filter and varying the shutter speed between one and three minutes, adjusting the ISO and aperture as I went along to compensate for the increasing light levels as the sun rose.
The scene changed remarkably in that small amount of time as the fog intensified, and in the end I used a mixture of luminosity masks and gradient masks to splice and blend my exposures together, using the foggiest exposures for the background and the most visible exposures for the foreground, along with an exposure taken moments before the sun appeared above the hills in the distance. Similarly, when editing and colour-grading the image, I split the workflow between these three elements, emphasising the colder and more obscure tones where the lake and trees vanished into the distance, which I felt contrasted nicely with the clarity of the branches in the foreground and with the golden tones across the water where warm light was reflecting. Most of this phase of the workflow was achieved using Curves, Colour Balance and Gradient Map adjustments, with luminosity masks and the Apply Image function to target the adjustments between the distant shadows and the highlights above the hills. I also gently emphasised the fog at the centre of the frame by duplicating the original layer, setting the blend mode to Screen and using a reflective gradient mask that excluded the shadows and highlights -- essentially brightening the midtones along the shore where the fog was most visible.
The post-processing beyond this was minimal because I wanted as clean and low-contrast a finish as possible to emphasise the natural drama of the scene. I used very sparing amounts of Nik Colour Efex Pro's Pro Contrast and Detail Extractor filters to selectively emphasise the foreground branches, as well as Silver Efex Pro's Soft Contrast slider -- which was then set to the Luminosity blend mode -- to ensure a smooth transition between warm and cold tones across the sky and water. Ultimately -- and perhaps ironically -- the challenge amid these many incremental adjustments was to reflect the simplicity of the scene, and to convey the elemental magic that was unfolding before me during this remarkable sunrise.
You can also connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, 500px and Google+.