# Little mill pond sunset reflections



## Life (May 6, 2015)

I don't think I have actually posted photos here besides a couple of links. When I'm out shooting, I like to do more than just the shot. After I get composition, and all my settings down and what I need for the area, I often like to go into HDR. I find that I manually bracket my photos and just do them in PS and that works well for me. I do it, because especially shooting sunset situations, you end up needing to choose, how well do I want the foreground to be lit, overexposed, underexposed, and the sky, and this way, I can get all of the details, and creates a more interesting visual effect.


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## limr (May 6, 2015)

The compositions are nice. The processing is way too much for my taste.


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## Life (May 6, 2015)

limr said:


> The compositions are nice. The processing is way too much for my taste.


The processing is actually extremely low. Shot in raw, so I only did very minor color adjustments, and I mean very minor. Each picture consists of 2 shots. 1 shot of the sky perfectly exposed, and one of the foreground perfectly exposed, then blended in photoshop. Had you stood there and then, that's just about what you would have seen  But thank you


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## bribrius (May 6, 2015)

Life said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > The compositions are nice. The processing is way too much for my taste.
> ...


these do seem well done. I think the risk you might have in shooting the sky and foreground separate is the aspect of believability with the light. The scene can become "too balanced" so the shadow and light nolonger seems believable. i would guess on the tractor one, the tractors front should be a little darker.  Again, i like these though. Just thought i would throw in that for your consideration. The lighting has to make sense. No different than if someone goes overboard on shadow recovery so it nolonger makes sense with the lighting direction and the shadows. Just something for you to consider.


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## JamesScott86 (May 7, 2015)

Very interesting series!


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## emilsi (May 7, 2015)

Thanks for very interesting photographs. I really like sunsets


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## Designer (May 7, 2015)

We almost never see a SOOC JPEG file juxtaposed with the finished image.  You say it was "extremely low" processing, but when the processing itself demands our attention, we are left wondering how low is "low"?  My preference is for the processing to not steal the show.  IOW: don't make the processing become the topic of discussion.

Some of the sun/shade areas seem contrived to me.  Also I am not a fan of the lens effects coming off the sun.


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## Tim Tucker (May 7, 2015)

Interesting. With the first I like the way you have kept the relative areas convincing, I think the processing is good. But one small point, with the sky you have enhanced the effect of a backlit sunset and darkened the sky on the left, which doesn't quite sit with the side-lit trees on the other side of the lake.
The second again is well handled, but I find sunsets and rusting  machinery a bit cliched. It might be because I live on an old farm and am surrounded by farms, so I see too much scrap lying around instead of being disposed of properly.


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## Designer (May 7, 2015)

Tim Tucker said:


> I see too much scrap lying around instead of being disposed of properly.


Whoa there!  That is not scrap until I say it's scrap!  (jokey here) 

I once lived in the country.  A neighbor had an old crawler in the side yard.  I would swear that thing would never run again. Another neighbor (her son-in-law) started it one day and drove it to his place on its own tracks.  Color me flabbergasted.


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## Life (May 7, 2015)

True, that machine is actually fully functional. Why it sits there? I have no idea. It sits in that same spot in the same field year after year, and every winter the road commission uses it to scrape the snow off of roads...


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## NancyMoranG (May 10, 2015)

I really like these! 
As far as lighting comments posted above....ok, this is where I get confused. ..when a person 'light paints' something, it is not natural light either? So why the comment on whether this is natural or not?


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## 407370 (May 10, 2015)

Generally love the pics and processing. The first one is a bit unbalanced with the light source on the trees to the right but that is how nature works sometimes and I would not have changed it.


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## Actinometro (May 10, 2015)

Designer said:


> We almost never see a SOOC JPEG file juxtaposed with the finished image.  You say it was "extremely low" processing, but when the processing itself demands our attention, we are left wondering how low is "low"?  My preference is for the processing to not steal the show.  IOW: don't make the processing become the topic of discussion.
> 
> Some of the sun/shade areas seem contrived to me.  Also I am not a fan of the lens effects coming off the sun.



Photography is far from being direct image reproduction.
Photography is the interpretation of your 'heart' of what you see. Is an art.
Processing is as important as, or even more, than shooting.
That's my opinion !


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## Tim Tucker (May 12, 2015)

NancyMoranG said:


> I really like these!
> As far as lighting comments posted above....ok, this is where I get confused. ..when a person 'light paints' something, it is not natural light either? So why the comment on whether this is natural or not?



 All I said was that by darkening the upper left and enhancing the oranges and yellows you give the effect of backlit after the sun has gone down, but the trees are obviously lit by a sun above the horizon to the left, in the area of the darkened sky.
You can paint with light as much as you want and superficially it may have that 'digital punch'. In landscape though, the direction is always consistent, so anybody looking at it for a while will begin to see it as a little odd because in our experience of observing the beauty of nature we always see that consistency.


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## FITBMX (May 13, 2015)

Designer said:


> Tim Tucker said:
> 
> 
> > I see too much scrap lying around instead of being disposed of properly.
> ...



Do you remember what kind of crawler it was? 

The first thing I thought when I saw #2 was "That's a rather nice Cat blade!" It still has all of it's glass, and the lift cylinders on it aren't even rusty. That thing should be out working, not posing for photo shoots! LOL


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## Designer (May 14, 2015)

FITBMX said:


> Do you remember what kind of crawler it was?


Caterpillar  Probably D7 size or thereabouts.  Cable blade lift.


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## FITBMX (May 14, 2015)

Designer said:


> FITBMX said:
> 
> 
> > Do you remember what kind of crawler it was?
> ...



That's a big one! My grandpa had a a D7 with a pony start, and two D8s those low RPM old Cat engines will run for ever!


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## Life (May 15, 2015)

Lol you guys... Besides the tractor discussion, thanks for the comments, all things considered


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