Dan's Outside

Oak Grassland, Twilight

Oak Grassland, Twilight. Calero Hills, California. December 28, 2006. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell. (Sales)

As a follow up to the previous post about using the Canon 5D on the trail, I thought I’d do a bit of a photography post today.

Late yesterday I did a short evening loop hike at Calero Hills Park. Although I went out with a plan to do a bunch of photography, the light was very challenging – there are hills to the west here, so the late light is block and twilight comes a bit early to the small valley I hiked through.

At the very end of the hike (at a point embarassingly close to the parking lot) I thought I might find a shot of a very familiar scene near a small lake as the last light illuminated some clouds above the ridgeline. I quickly left the trail to cross a small grassy hill and set up my tripod in windy conditions as the light faded. I took three exposures of this one scene – multiple exposures because the incredibly wide dynamic range between foreground shadows and sunlit clouds would require me to combine exposures in photoshop.

With a scene like this one works to strike a balance between the “real” appearance at the time of the exposure, the way the eye saw it, the way the mind recalls it, the remembered feeling of the scene, and decent photographic practice.

My first “take” on this scene was the black and white version I posted last night. In some ways I prefer the subtler monochrome version, though it may seem too “flat” to some viewers. As an alternative I worked up this color version. I think it is growing on me.

By the way, if you are wondering what the RAW files from the camera looked like… you’ll have to continue wondering for now. :-)
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December 29, 2006 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Photography: Calero