Oh dear. Now I feel under pressure! Steve Krodman nominated me (isn’t this more like a chain letter than a nomination?) for the 7 photos in 7 days in which you are supposed to nominate another person each day to accept the challenge of posting an interesting nature/wildlife/landscape photo.
At first I thought the photos had to be HDR. So, I went digging around for one and decided on this photo from Alaska, shot last August: The Grand Pacific Glacier at the northern most end of Glacier Bay. This shot intrigues me because:
- From the foreground (tip top of the glacier) to the background (the distant mountain peak) of the image is a distance of 17 miles. Regrettably, there are no objects you can use to judge scale. I was about a mile away from the glacier in a boat. The 200mm telephoto lens collapses that distance visually, but it’s a bit of a hike.
- You only see the very top of the glacier in the foreground. It drops straight down, way, way, way, down to the bay. An enormous cruise ship was directly in front of the glacier, so I framed the shot in such a way as to hide it from view. But, the framing brings you deeper into the drama of the location which has completely different weather 17 miles away.
- This image was exported out of a new software program I’m playing with: Aurora HDR. Trey Ratcliff, well-known HDR photographer, was directly involved in the software’s development. I’m really enjoying the app. It is very powerful. For example:
- This image was shot in raw camera format and the single image was imported into Aurora HDR for manipulation. Apparently enough parametric latitude exists in the Canon raw camera format for the software to extract the traditional EV variances used when typically shooting multiple images for an HDR photo composite. Clever software.
- I shot this image on the bobbing boat having fractured my kneecap a couple of days earlier! PAIN!
Rather than continuing the challenge for others, I welcome you to explore Trey’s website, Stuck in Customs, if you aren’t already familiar with his work in HDR.
Nicely done!