Along Wastwater with Water Cragg

Walking around Wastwater I had a good day with more than one acceptable image. For this one I decided to be more creative. The moody sky reflecting through the rippled surface of the majestic lake was my first pre-visualisation and I hoped to bring that to the finished print. I used a couple of ND grads to bring the clouds down as dark as possible before any lightroom intervention. I used the Sigma EX 10mm - 20mm for this shot at the long end (20mm hahaha) stopped right down to F-32 to ensure depth right through the scene, this is not conducive to image sharpness however with this lens I find the fall off quite insignificant compared to the impact created and a touch of selective sharpening can resolve any softness issues anyway. Luckily 1-30th of a second was just adequate enough to contain the movement in the water and clouds as I was quite adamant on using ISO 100. Post exposure manipulation was quite intensive with this image but apart from cropping to a tight long rectangle and adding a very warm light all the other Lightroom work was non invasive. I spent considerable time dodging and burning to liken it as much as possible to an original darkroom process, I hoped to blend the tones to allow enough light in the darkest areas to show some subtle texture and to stop the highlights from running into blown out whites.
The camera used was a Canon EOS 550d
I love the feeling of tranquility conveyed through this picture, although in reality a steady cold breeze was making my eyes water and my nose run!
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