"I'm always mentally photographing what I see as practice."
Minor White
While the calender might say March 30 the weather gods have continued to send Northwest Iowa flakes of snow and chilly weather. The forecast for early next week is still showing some snow activity, which makes for grumpy attitudes. While I continue to wait for the first Spring flowers I have been "flipping" through my files from 2010 and have found several images that I had passed over during the primary editing go around.
The blog image is from South Dakota's Badlands National Park and I can remember "hunkering" down in a gully trying to get a low shot while staying out of the raging wind. This was an HDR capture and processed in Nik HDR Efex software and Photoshop CS5. The HDR process helped to define the sky much more than a single shot process would have, as the whites would have "blocked up" lacking definition. The landscape reminded my of sharks teeth, or at least what I think sharks teeth would look like and was the main reason I thought this would be a good place to capture.
This once again is a reminder that some captures which don't stand out at first glance often need a second look as a reminder as to why the capture was first made. In this case the strong sky character with sharp edges outcroppings were the draw to my eye. The shadow across the foreground served to add depth to the image as did the light diagonal that stretches from the bottom right hand corner to the farthest outcropping on the right.
While winter winds continue to blow I know that Mother Nature is stirring and blossoms will soon break through earth's fertile crust. Until then I'll continue my mission of scouring files and learning Photoshop techniques for further use.
Thanks to all that stop by to visit my blog and happy shooting.
My new book "Places I've Been, Things I've Seen" can be purchased online at-
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1868649
For more views of my work visit;
"A Piece Of Work", Spirit Lake, Iowa http://www.apieceofworkinc.com
Lanesboro Art Center, Lanesboro, Minnesota www.lanesboroarts.org
BetterPhoto.com http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V1