Thursday, February 3, 2011

Ripples in the snow

National Geographic talent I do not have. It's very frustrating actually, because they are normal people like me, nothing special, but yet they have it, I don't. I'm sure they could have captured the ripples in the snow that God's hand has made and with their talent shown something fabulous. Unfortunately you are stuck with my somewhat mediocre talent, so here is my best shot.


Nikon D90
ISO-100
Lens 18-70mm at 55mm
Aperture F/13
Shutter 1/250 sec.
Exposure -0.3
No Flash, Natural Lighting

I went out at high noon today to water the dogs and just fell in love with the wind patterns on the snow, just like with Brandi's shot. The patterns are all unique looking and just beautiful. Normally high noon is not a very good time to take pictures, but it was great for the play of light and shadows I was trying to capture. Part of the reason why I went black and white is to enhance those shadows, which black and white does far better then color.

I also had turned my exposure down some because when shooting in wintery, snowy conditions your sensor gets a little messed up reading the snow (reads it as much brighter then it actually is) so you turn down your exposure to help compensate for some of that. I turned the picture to black and white in Photoshop and bumped up my blacks a tad to give it a slightly more dramatic look. 3C1D had two adorable baby pictures recently, one in low light, almost black and white looking and one in full beautiful color. Brandi had her shot done in full color for our most recent Wordless Wednesday, so I changed mine to black and white to continue the theme. Anybody else wishing they had National Geographic talent??? Or am I the only one??

Sere

5 comments:

  1. I so want some of that talent. Or to be more truthful, I'd love some of Ansel Adams' talent!

    I do love this picture. I think you could crop it to just being the snow, no background and it would be stronger. But that's because I love the way the snow turned out! Good job!

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  2. I'm with you there Amanda. You know I was thinking about cropping it like that, not sure why I didn't exactly. Thanks!

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  3. I wonder if a sepia tone would make it look like rippling sand dunes... I like the ripples, but I kind of like how it's "grounded" with the trees in the background... Any way you mess with it, it's a cool shot.

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  4. I posted a comment the other day and it got eaten by Blogger apparently. Sigh.
    Here's a less eloquent (because my first attempt had beautiful passages about light and color - trust me it did :) ) comment.
    I like the idea of going black and white. I toyed with it in my post. I really think it added to the feel of the tree shadows.
    I like the idea of cropping it too. Just to get the background distraction away from the start of the show.
    Were you using a UV filter on your lens? It's about the only thing I've found that even remotely makes it possible to shoot in snow. I'm curious if that was your experience as well.

    xoxo,
    B

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  5. I tried sepia but it just didn't look right to me black and white just worked. Yes I do have a UV filter on my lens I always work with a UV filter. I guess you don't always need it, but it protects the lens a bit. I had fun taking these shots :)

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