A Girl and her Thoughts
A girl on the ledge of the gazebo looking out on a valley in Tennessee
A girl on the ledge of the gazebo looking out on a valley in Tennessee
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Jul, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken in the Cherokee National Forest near Cleveland TN. I had gone down to visit my daughter who was attending Lee University. While down there I decided to explore the area and she let me know of the nearby National Forest. I love taking pictures outdoors so I took the short drive over to see what I could get.Time
I choose to visit the park at the end of the day as I was told there were several overlooks that looked over the valley to the west and thought it would make a great sunset picture. Since I hadn't been there yet I wasn't sure exactly which way the sun would set from the overlooks but knew it was a wide valley I figured I would be able to get the sunset, not matter where it was. Turned out from all the overlooks it was slightly over to the left and the clouds that had been there had moved on out of view.Lighting
Since the sun turned out not to bit directly out in front of me on the valley I was overlooking, I decided to see what else it might be shining on. On my way back to my car I walked past the gazebo that was at this overlook and saw the girl sitting on the edge overlooking the valley. Since the sun was shining on her and the pillar next to her I thought it would be a great picture to zoom in so you only saw the edges of the pillars next to her to form a sorta window. I set my camera settings so I could capture the light of the valley and the glow around her leaving the dark on the edges of the photo to help enhance this window effect.Equipment
This was taken handheld on a Nikon D80 with an 18-135mm lens at a focal length of 35mm without a flash.Inspiration
I had walked up next to the overview where you could see the entire valley below and did take some pictures, but due to the haze, I was disappointed in the results. I had started walking back to my car when I passed the gazebo. I looked over and saw this girl in a red dress just sitting on the edge of the gazebo facing the valley. I liked how the sun was shining on her and the edges of the gazebo and that you could see the valley below that she was viewing. It just looked like such a peaceful seen of someone just enjoying the view.Editing
This was a 3 bracket shot from -2,0,+2 that I processed with PhotoMatix and then cropped in Lightroom. In lightroom, I also adjusted the highlights and shadows to bring them down a bit so I got the glow around her and darken the edges of the photo to give a sense that I was looking through a windowIn my camera bag
I have a variety of items in my camera bag as you never know what you will need. It includes my Nikon d80, a Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR ems, an AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED lens, a Nikon SB-600 Flash, a wireless remote, an adjustable ND filter, a Polarizing filter, lens cleaning kit, extra batteries, extra memory cards and my trusty tripod.Feedback
Originally I had planned on taking a picture of just the valley at sunset, this didn't work out as planned due to the sun angle being different that I had hoped for and the haze of the summer sky. So I kept and eye out for other opportunities and say this on my way back to my car. Although I did end up cropping this photo to get the framing I was looking for it would still have made a great photo with the wider view. Since the view of the valley itself didn't look great, adding the foreground objects and person helped bring a sense of the peacefulness and a sense of distance of the valley behind my subject.
