{"id":708,"date":"2009-10-31T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T19:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/31\/the-making-of-a-photograph-part-2-exploration\/"},"modified":"2018-09-09T19:03:56","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T03:03:56","slug":"the-making-of-a-photograph-part-2-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/31\/the-making-of-a-photograph-part-2-exploration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Making of a Photograph Part 2 – Exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first post I talked about photographing Yosemite Valley at sunrise from Tunnel View in a snow storm.\u00a0 I imported the images into Lightroom and reviewed them there.\u00a0 One stood out.\u00a0 See The Making of a Photograph Part 1 \u2013 Selection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Yosemite_1\"<\/p>\n

The next step is to explore the image for possibilities.\u00a0 I do this in Lightroom, making virtual copies of the image that I can then adjust.\u00a0 I adjust such things as color temperature, exposure, highlights, shadows, fill, contrast, saturation, hue and more.\u00a0 The goal is to see what\u2019s in the image and what it\u2019s capable of expressing.\u00a0 I\u2019m also looking for something that gets me excited.<\/p>\n

My experience is that while I usually have an idea of what I want to do with the image often times it also has something it wants to say.\u00a0 So I try a few things to see what emerges.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the time I took the picture there was a faint warm glow in some of the clouds.\u00a0 The sun was up and the clouds must have been thinner in some places.\u00a0 So there was a very pleasing yet subtle play of cool and warm in the clouds.\u00a0 So the first thing I tried was to emphasize the warmth.<\/p>\n

\"Yosemite_2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first version ended up really warm.\u00a0 It was nice but lost the coolness of the storm. And it feels more like a sunset than a sunrise.\u00a0 I want to capture that early morning feeling and the cold while still preserving the grandeur and mystery of the moment.<\/p>\n

So I tried something else.<\/p>\n

\"Yosemite_3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This one ended up not as cool as the original image but cool none the less.\u00a0 It has a feeling of motion that the warm image kind of lost; it\u2019s dynamic.\u00a0 It has energy.\u00a0 I like that.\u00a0\u00a0 However, there were some purples that didn\u2019t seem to fit, especially right above the valley floor.<\/p>\n

So, try something else.\u00a0 I\u2019m beginning to realize I\u2019m not going to get very close to what I want in Lightroom.\u00a0 I\u2019ll need to take it into Photoshop to finish it.\u00a0 So the objective now is to create an image that has both the cool and subtle warm tones in the clouds, something I\u2019ll be able to work with and develop more in Photoshop.\u00a0 So, here\u2019s what I ended up with.<\/p>\n

\"Yosemite_4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Color-wise, it\u2019s not much different from the first.\u00a0\u00a0 The differences are really subtle.\u00a0 Mostly you\u2019ll see that the forest in the foreground is opened up a tiny bit.\u00a0 And while it may be hard to see in this example, there is just enough warmth in some of the clouds to be able to pull it out in Photoshop.<\/p>\n

So the next step is to export the image into Photoshop where the rest of the work will be done.\u00a0 There will be two types of adjustments I\u2019ll do there \u2013 local and global.\u00a0 Local adjustments will make up the majority.\u00a0 Most of the global adjustments have already been performed in Lightroom although as I become more and more familiar with the image and the direction it wants to go, some additional global adjustments may be called for.<\/p>\n

So check back in the following days to see how this progresses.<\/p>\n

The journey continues \u2013 read Part 3.<\/a><\/p>\n

Join me on an upcoming workshop.<\/a><\/p>\n

Become a fan on Facebook and follow along.<\/a><\/p>\n

(1087)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first post I talked about photographing Yosemite Valley at sunrise from Tunnel View in a snow storm.\u00a0 I imported the images into Lightroom and reviewed them there.\u00a0 One stood out.\u00a0 See The Making of a Photograph Part 1 \u2013 Selection. The next step is to explore the image for possibilities.\u00a0 I do this … Continue reading “The Making of a Photograph Part 2 – Exploration”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,6,5],"tags":[32,13,10,231,43,93,262],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-how-to-articles","category-journal","category-photography-as-art","tag-california","tag-photography","tag-ralph-nordstrom","tag-sierra-nevada","tag-sunrise","tag-workshop","tag-yosemite"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-bq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3923,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/3923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}