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Yin and Yang

I have returned to my favourite, magical location, the secret little world enclosed by the lazy meanders of the river Adda just downstream the eastern arm of the lake Como (its real name being Lario), just before it begins to flow into the Padan Plain. It is a hidden gem under everyone's eyes - surrounded as it is by busy roads, towns, and productive sites, as soon as you get on the river's banks you feel like you have entered an entirely different world. I think that the wetlands nestled between the meanders have preserved the place, making it less than amenable to settlements (but very amenable to a sheer variety of birds).

At 5° C and a substantially clean sky, I would have bet on the place being very misty, as it almost always is at early morning. Luckily I didn't, since I would have lost. The air was crystal clear, the place devoid of its usual mysterious ambiance (visit my album Silent banks to get an idea). I was lucky enough that Autumn was extremely generous with its treasures, and my sunrise session was not to go wasted, after all.

 

I was walking downstream, almost convinced that it was time to go back home, when a couple of twin old, large plane trees captured my attention. While framing, in the most serendipitous way, I was abruptly aware of the interplay of lights and shadows that was quietly unfolding behind my back while I was walking, a perfect yin and yang of day and night at the boundary between the two opposite poles - and that golden, fiery speck of a young plane tree right at the center of the dance, set against the dark hillside. Since such light conditions can last mere minutes, I hurriedly set up my tripod to capture the drama, not caring about the grass in the foreground being decently sharp or not.

I hope that you enjoy this new post of mine and wish you a nice Sunday.

 

I have processed this picture by blending an exposure bracketing [-1.3/-0.67/0/+0.67/+1.3 EV] by luminosity masks with the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal" exposure shot), then I added some final touches with Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Along the journey I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic, which has contributed a lot to the rendering of the trees and reflections on the right side of the framing, enhancing the light transfixing the foliage. Raw files processed with Darktable.

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Uploaded on November 14, 2021
Taken on November 7, 2021