Cool Morning Revisited
by Peter Cross
This photo was taken in almost exactly the same place as my first one of this title. Same buck, same photographer, almost the same place. About 50' to the left for the buck and 20' for me in the same direction. But a different perspective and less backlighting and sunbeams. But still a pleasing image. A few tweaks to try for more contrast and pop and cloned out some bright spots showing through the BG vegetation that distracted the eye. Your comments and critiques would be appreciated.
Tech Info
Canon EOS 60D with EF 70-200mm f/4L at 200mm
1/200th at f/4.0 and ISO 800
Tripod
Lightroom 5
Comments
3 commentsI have an experiment to suggest for you. Take this image and sequentially pull back the exposure by 1 stop, 1.5 stops, and 2 stops. I think you'll be surprised by what you see...as presented I think this image is REALLY over-exposed and there's beauty here just waiting to be revealed.
The absolute first thing I do with ANY image (i.e., step 1 in raw conversion) is something I call "exploring the exposure". Before touching ANYTHING, simply grab the exposure adjustment and slowly pull the slider - take it back all the way to about -1.5 stops. Do the same thing on the positive end - all the time thinking about how the various bits of background and foreground look, how the subject looks, how various parts of the subject looks (e.g., in this image you can find some sweet lighting on the antlers when you pull the exposure back). Store all that info in your brain (e.g., "background and antlers should come back 1.2 stops, foreground should come back 1 stop, etc."). Then your task is to selectively adjust the exposure to match (which can be done in a number of different ways). This approach works real well in when trying to return scene back to how it appeared in the field (our cameras rarely get it too close to how it was by "default"), but also can be used to take the image to new levels of creativity (if you so choose).
Cheers...
Brad