Lakeside shot

[Mike Lozano]

Here is a HDR photo of a lake that's by our house.

Mike Lozano: Clouds Over Lake​

Comments are welcome.

Mike


http://lafango.com/1hdr4u/media/2301821-clouds-over-lake-2

 

[Asher Kelman]

Here is a HDR photo of a lake that's by our house.

Mike Lozano: Clouds Over Lake​

Mike,

You are one of the luckiest fellows on the planet! This view is magnificent and you could do a lifetimes work in this one area, from macro, plants, insects, water fowl, birds and people coming through. I wonder how you took this picture. I could fall in love with the place. You could also sell pictures to Hallmark as this would make some of the most bucolic scenes ever.

I wonder why the ducks are cut off at the edge of the lower border? Could you explain your process to prepare the image. Did you crop one image or stitch adjacent frames?

Thanks for sharing!

Asher

 

[Mike Lozano]

Mike Lozano: Clouds Over Lake​

Mike,

You are one of the luckiest fellows on the planet! This view is magnificent and you could do a lifetimes work in this one area, from macro, plants, insects, water fowl, birds and people coming through. I wonder how you took this picture. I could fall in love with the place. You could also sell pictures to Hallmark as this would make some of the most bucolic scenes ever.

I wonder why the ducks are cut off at the edge of the lower border? Could you explain your process to prepare the image. Did you crop one image or stitch adjacent frames?

Thanks for sharing!

Asher

Thank you so much for the kind words. As you can see, I'm still trying. Maybe as I've told others I can get one or two right out of a hundred. I used Photomatix Pro and managed to get the processing just right for this photo, but that's all part of the learning process. I should've got the ducks more in the shot but I wasn't thinking about it. I did crop the picture from the top. After I did my tone mapping I went to the finishing sequence in Photomatix and where as I've always used the contrast slider I decided not to use it and just added a little bit of color to the clouds and used some clarity. Thanks again for the good word.

 

[fahim mohammed]

Mike, indeed you are very lucky to be living near this place.

I do not know HDR; but may I ask why you have softened the image? Have you cropped it significantly?
Is it possible you could post a ' toned down ' HDR image for us to view.

I agree with Asher, the ducks belong here as much as the surrounds.

Thank you for sharing this beautiful place.

 

[Asher Kelman]

............

I do not know HDR; but may I ask why you have softened the image? Have you cropped it significantly?
Is it possible you could post a ' toned down ' HDR image for us to view.................

Fahim,

Yes, this landscape is a gift that needs to be photographed and celebrated. This is already "toned down" from his other HDR picture here. This is so much gentler and not at all morbid.

Nevertheless, I think that the advantages of HDR are a challenge to obtain with Photomatix, unless one wants to make a picture that follows that fashion. For the best HDR images I have seen with reality, (but not a sense of looking at the planet with the eyes of Martians, LOL), SNS-HDR is needed. It might be that the new Nik HDR software performs well to as they make excellent products, but I've still to try it.

Asher

 

[Maris Rusis]

An accomplished picture that illustrates that the casual eye will accept the impossible.

It cannot be that the reflection of the sky in the lake is brighter than the sky itself. And yet this technique has many famous precedents of which Ansel Adams' "Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake" is possibly the most exaggerated.

Even so, looking at Mike Lozano's "Clouds over Lake" is a pleasant experience and perhaps nicer than looking at the actual clouds over the actual lake in that place at that time.

 

[Sam Hames]

...

Even so, looking at Mike Lozano's "Clouds over Lake" is a pleasant experience and perhaps nicer than looking at the actual clouds over the actual lake in that place at that time.

Reading that and looking at the progression of photos you've posted in a new light has been interesting for me.

The first few you posted felt like a hammer looking for a nail (ie, technique first and everything else second ) - something I understand: for me it's a constant struggle to focus on making photos and not get distracted by shiny things (cameras! lenses! software!).

Now I see a trajectory, and I'm really intrigued to see where you go next with these.

 

[Mike Lozano]

Re: Lakeside Shot

Thanks all for the kind & inspiring words. I've only been working with HDR photography for a little more than a month now and by no means do I have a hold on either the technique of HDR or photography itself for that matter. I can only say that I am learning both & maybe some day I may get on a roll and shoot several "acceptable" photos that I and others consider pleasing to the eye.