Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

I was lucky to happen upon this gorgeous scene while driving to Reno the other day. Such scenes are fleeting, so I quickly pulled off the highway and grabbed my camera before heading down to find some interesting foreground -- only to turn around and march right back up to my truck to swap lenses and try again. A Sony 24-105 generally lives on my Riii but I wanted to capture more -- a lot more -- of this fabulous sky over an 11-mile long lake than a 24mm lens would allow.

I decided these sagebrush would do nicely. They may be boring to us desert-dwellers, but perhaps interesting to city folk or others from wetter, lush environs.

Lady luck smiled on me again as I noticed the lines of the rocks on my left and of the gravel & rocks on my right converged into an X that played perfectly symmetrically off the sunrays. I crouched down, centered the sun and horizon, and clicked a few hand-held, as there wasn't time to set up the tripod I keep under my back seat. Thank goodness for IBIS.

Processed in Lightroom. I couldn't get it to look right using grad filters. There was just too much to do to draw out the rays and color in the sky with a grad filter's limited tools, so I made a copy and worked the top and bottom separately (using the straight line of the far side of the lake as the boundary). I then opened them as layers in Photoshop and masked out the bottom of the sky edit to reveal the foreground edit then merged them. This is very representative of what I saw through my polarized sunglasses, but I couldn't use a polarizer on my fisheye lens, so the sky needed a bit of adjustment. In the end I even took the saturation slider down to -25 because the abundance of color looked fake. It truly was a remarkable scene.

The attached file is a reduced 2048x1366px Facebook res.

Thoughts and helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Sony a7Riii
Samyang 12mm f/2.8 Fisheye
ISO 125
1/30
f/11
-2 stop exposure bias

(Download)

djtravels Loc: Georgia boy now

It is a nice scene and your PP was most interesting to me. Neve thought of doing post in sections, but I will in the future.
djt

fuminous Loc: Luling, LA... for now...

Nice capture, Desert Gecko!

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

Nice capture! The only thing that seems awkward to me is that the brush in front of you seems lit by a different source. Everything is darker leading up to them, and then they are lit as if a flash went off? In other words, they are back lit while the sun is in front of you. Same for the rocks at your feet, which was the second place my eyes went. Maybe a little dodging and burning from the brush to the shore line on line with the sunrise?

jaysnave Loc: Central Ohio

I like this image and thank you for stoping to capture it! As for critique and I don't like that word by the way. I originally thought that the image was a bit dark and could benefit from some dodging & burning, however upon opening the download I changed my mind. It looks just right for me. However, I clicked again to zoom a bit and I like the crop much better where the sagebrush is not so prominent in the foreground. Just peering over the top of the sagebrush into the rocks, into the lake, and into the sunrise leads me more into the image.

Ronsh Loc: Floresville,Tx.

I like it as is!

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Thanks. I had never thought of processing that way until now, when I really noticed the limitations of a graduated filter.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Thanks!

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Thanks. That brightness of the brush bothers me a bit now, too. I wanted foreground interest, but it is just a tad much. I already dodged and burned the foreground a bit to even it out, as the sun wreaked havoc with uneven lighting as it did with the sky. I guess I should go back and pay more attention to it. To be honest, the foreground was more an afterthought as I really focused on that sky.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Thanks. I was thinking the same about the brush, and yours is the second comment about it. I'll go back and darken it a tad.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Thank you!

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

With that sky to look at, I probably wouldn't even have seen the sage in front if it hadn't been mentioned. That's beautiful! I'm so glad you were going that way that you stopped and shot it, and that you share it with us.

It's so lovely that I hate to even mention a downside. Is it my astigmatism, or is it slightly crooked? Because I frequently have to correct this in my own pictures, I'm sort of conscious of it. You might check it out with a grid. And, please know - it's probably my astigmatism!

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Thanks, and no worries! Funny, talking about noticing things, I intentionally ignored the rule of thirds and golden ratio for this shot. For a previous, similar shot, I applied one or the other (I'll see if I can quickly find it to attach). But when looking for something to include in the foreground, I notice first the dirt roadway on the far right but decided I'm tired of using roads in my photos (dirt roads are everywhere here in the desert), so I aimed left and voila! The line of rocks on the left and the line in the gravel (which transformed to a line of rocks behind the bushes) formed an X right below the rising sun and starting point of the rays. So I went for a symmetrical composition even though I couldn't center the brush. Funny what things we notice. The X went unnoticed by a couple photog friends of mine (I was rather proud of the composition).

The horizon is straight. I just opened it in Lightroom and cropped it down to check the horizon against a grid line. The problem is although the horizon (the back side of the lake) is perfectly straight, the mountains being higher on the left and the curvature of the front of the lake make it appear the photo is tilted. I hadn't noticed, but since you did, others surely will. I think I might have to skew it a tad to make it appear level. I've had to do that with other photos. A recent one comes to mind where a ridgeline receding into the distance made the photo look crooked, even though it was perfectly straight.

So AzPicLady thank you very much for mentioning this! I'll make a little adjustment on this and adjust the bushes a tad before printing an enlargement.

(Download)

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

Very nicely done. The only quibble I have is the lower left corner is light enough it draws my eye away from the main show. If you were to dim it a bit, it would not distract.