Captain Blue Ice revisited
Blue ice with a spectacular shape. He looks like a captain ready to follow his sinking ship into their common watery grave. The ice on this lake, Jökulsarlon, comes from an arm of Iceland's largest glacier, Vatnajökul. The black color is caused by volcanic ashes from eruptions of one of the many volcanos under the ice; probably Gjalp or Grimsvötn, which both erupted around the turn of the century.
I was quite disappointed when I first time saw the photo on the computer, it was very different from how I remembered him. I just had to admit that my camera was not good enough any more, stray light and worn out lens coating seemed gave poor contrast and the blue color that l saw so clearly up there was hardly visible. See the unedited original below. I was so disappointed that I did not include the photo when presenting photos of the trips to those who had joined me, and it took at least a month from uploading before I posted any photo of the captain.
Everything changed when I started to edit my photos. The edited version (See second photo below) was much closer to what I saw, and the first attempt was an immediate success on Flickr. "Captain Blue Ice" is by far my most viewed, commented and faved photo.
However, I was never fully satisfied with the version, in particular I disliked the whiteout on parts of the photo. What I did like was the color balance. Other versions I made were more correct of the blue color of the captain, but the the rest of the photo was too blue. The greyish background on "Captain blue ice" seemed to emphasis the blue color.
Here is the reedited version. I had to reduce the contrast and make the photo slightly darker to avoid too much whiteout. Therefore I had to increase the color intensity, but also them warmer, hence the ice is slightly greenish and the surrounding slightly brownish. I like this much more, but may try to improve it even further later.
Captain Blue Ice revisited
Blue ice with a spectacular shape. He looks like a captain ready to follow his sinking ship into their common watery grave. The ice on this lake, Jökulsarlon, comes from an arm of Iceland's largest glacier, Vatnajökul. The black color is caused by volcanic ashes from eruptions of one of the many volcanos under the ice; probably Gjalp or Grimsvötn, which both erupted around the turn of the century.
I was quite disappointed when I first time saw the photo on the computer, it was very different from how I remembered him. I just had to admit that my camera was not good enough any more, stray light and worn out lens coating seemed gave poor contrast and the blue color that l saw so clearly up there was hardly visible. See the unedited original below. I was so disappointed that I did not include the photo when presenting photos of the trips to those who had joined me, and it took at least a month from uploading before I posted any photo of the captain.
Everything changed when I started to edit my photos. The edited version (See second photo below) was much closer to what I saw, and the first attempt was an immediate success on Flickr. "Captain Blue Ice" is by far my most viewed, commented and faved photo.
However, I was never fully satisfied with the version, in particular I disliked the whiteout on parts of the photo. What I did like was the color balance. Other versions I made were more correct of the blue color of the captain, but the the rest of the photo was too blue. The greyish background on "Captain blue ice" seemed to emphasis the blue color.
Here is the reedited version. I had to reduce the contrast and make the photo slightly darker to avoid too much whiteout. Therefore I had to increase the color intensity, but also them warmer, hence the ice is slightly greenish and the surrounding slightly brownish. I like this much more, but may try to improve it even further later.