purplesunset2
Jan, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo looking out over Little Washoe Lake in the Washoe Lake area of Nevada. I saw this scene as I was driving home from work one evening.Time
This was taken in the evening right at sunset. This area is on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range so it creates some interesting sunsets. The sun sinks below the mountains long before it starts to set over the horizon so the area becomes shadowed early in the afternoon. This meant that a lot of the sunsets there were colors that I usually did not see during sunset. I grew up on the ocean so these sunsets were a new world for me.Lighting
I was drawn out to take this photo because of the colors. I had never seen the sky so purple before. It was truly amazing. Washoe Lake is right on the other side of the Sierras so we get some huge storms rolling through and as they pass over the mountains and down into the valley the clouds break up creating these dramatic scenes.Equipment
This photo was shot with a Nikon D7000 and the 18-55mm AF-S kit lens at 18mm. No tripod no flash. I wanted to exaggerate the curved shape of the clouds so I would have gone even wider if I had a wide angle lens at the time but this photo was taken quite some time ago when I was just starting out with digital photography so I only had the kit lens then.Inspiration
I am inspired by the beauty around me. I don't do much traveling so I need to spend as much time as I can exploring the areas around where I live. I took many photos of this little lake over several years going back to the same basic area. Crawling around in the bushes and wading through the lake to find that new unique perspective. The dramatic mountains and clouds along with the snow and the beautiful serene lake really caught my attention. My favorite times to go to the lake to take photos were during or right after storms. That would always create a dramatic scene. The colors this particular evening really captivated me and I just had to capture it.Editing
Whenever I take a photograph I am going to do some post processing. I am creating an image not trying to record the world perfectly. I approach photography as I do sketching, drawing, painting, sculpting or any other artistic medium. I look at the initial photograph as choosing my material to work with and post processing as the actual image creation. With this photo I did some minor cropping and made some adjustments to the shadows as well as contrast to make the clouds pop from the sky and have a little bit more definition. I also adjusted the color a little bit to make it more true to what I saw in real life.In my camera bag
I didn't used to carry my camera with me every day. When I took this photo I was working in and office and I would frequently leave my camera at home. Then one day there was a huge wildfire and while I was trying to get home to make sure my home was safe from it I ran into several great photo opportunities that I missed. Since that day I always have a basic kit with me. Generally I carry my D7000 along with a couple lenses and an sb-900. I typically carry a kit of lenses that include 35mm f1.8 Nikon, 55-300mm Nikon, 10-24 Sigma, and the Nikon 105mm f2.8 Micro. You never know when you will see a fascinating insect or flower. Along with that I carry an extra battery, extra sd cards, lens cloths, a rain cover for my camera, and other miscellaneous items that I find useful.Feedback
Time and patience. I think the biggest advice I can give is to spend a lot of time in your environment hiking around and scouting out locations. I was able to get this photo because I knew the location right away and I didn't have to wander around looking for the best vantage point and in the process possibly losing the light. Double check your settings before clicking, pay special attention to shutter speed, aperture, and iso as those are the things you can't change after the fact. If your exposure is too far off and you lose detail in highlights or the shadows you cannot recover those. I always shoot in RAW too that way I have a little bit more freedom to adjust white balance and other aspects of the photo in post.
