Steele Bridge Sunrise
This is a digital blending of three photos using luminosity masks of the Steele Bridge in Portland Oregon.
This is a digital blending of three photos using luminosity masks of the Steele Bridge in Portland Oregon.
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Mar, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in downtown Portland Oregon. It's a picture of the Steele Bridge looking east with one of our city's beautiful cherry blossoms in front. The bridge spans the Willamette River and you can see our unique looking Portland Convention Center in the back with it's twin glass spires in the background.Time
This shot was taken at 7:42am on 3/19/16. I am a morning person to the chagrin of some of my family and friends. Which helps when you work for the USPS and need to get the mail ready early in the morning. It was my day off and I brought my wife with me that morning to get some shots of the cherry blossoms along the waterfront. Cherry blossoms only bloom their unique pink color for a really short period of time in the spring and it was my only opportunity to capture them. I actually got there late in the season and they were more white than I would have liked. After taking my sunrise photos from on top of the bridge looking down at the city skyline with all the trees in front, we ventured down to get some closer shots. That's when I saw this composition and knew I had to capture it. It had the three elements that go into making good photos. Interesting foreground, mid-ground and background elements.Lighting
As you can see, it was quite cloudy that morning and by the time we walked down from on top of the bridge, most of the sunrise color was gone. Beings I was shooting towards the sun I took several shots that were underexposed so that I could get more drama from the sky without it being blown out and unusable. I'm also a big fan of HDR photography and so with any scene, whether I use them or not, I will bracket my shots so that I can put them together in post later on. I have a method of taking shots with my camera where I set my bracketing at -3, 0, +3. Sometimes this is not enough and so I drop my exposure compensation to -1 and take three more shots at -4, -1 and +2. Then I raise my exposure to +1 and take three more at -2, +1 and +4. This way I get everything from -4 to +4. Some might think this is overkill but it works for me and it's easy to delete the photos I don't need later on.Equipment
This shot was taken on the Sony A6000, with a Sigma 19mm lens under natural light on a tripod. I had a circular polarizing filter on that morning which helps in the sky with color and depth. Often times I will use an ND filter, but there was very little wind and so the clouds weren't moving to get that nice motion blur with a long shutter speed. I also use a shutter cable so that I don't shake my camera while taking the pictures.Inspiration
I really wanted to capture the cherry blossoms this spring. I knew I wanted the sunrise photo I mentioned earlier, but after that I really didn't have a plan. I'm more of an organic photographer in that I'll go to a location with possibly one shot in mind but then I'll explore the area and see what piques my interest and that is what happened with this photo. I use my gut instinct most of the time. I figure that if a scene looks interesting to me, it might be interesting to others.Editing
Yes, I've become a post processing fanatic! I watch a lot of YouTube tutorial videos on how to develop my pictures. During this time, I was learning how to manually blend an HDR photo using luminosity masks. I used an underexposed photo for my sky, the normal exposed photo for the bridge and background buildings and one of the overexposed photos for the tree and sidewalk. After developing each photo in Lightroom for it's specific look, I blended them together in Photoshop. Because I was late in getting to the cherry blossoms while they were at their natural pink color and because I liked the very dramatic look I got out of the sky, I decided to color the leaves pink using a hue saturation layer. I wanted the tree to look as dramatic as the sky.In my camera bag
I don't carry a lot with me. It can get heavy lugging around everything. In my bag is the Sony A6000 mirrorless camera and I usually use two of three lenses that I have. Besides the standard kit lens, which I rarely use, I'm either using the Sigma 19mm prime or the Sony 55-210mm zoom. For landscape photography, I don't really need anything else. Both lenses are really sharp and I'm happy with the results I get. I have an array of filters for all three lenses and the shutter cable I mentioned earlier. Other than that, I use an Xrite Colorchecker Passport for white balance camera calibration. I have a cheap no-name tripod that needs replaced and that's it. I have learned awhile back that it's not about the gear you have but getting the most out of what you have.Feedback
As the old saying goes- "Practice, practice, practice!" I believe in learning as much as you can and each time you learn something new, practice it until you got it down and then move on to the next technique. This photo was about drama. Drama in the sky especially and drama in the cherry blossoms. It turned out surreal because of the new luminosity technique I was learning as I manually blended each photo together. Take photos and fill the frame with what you like. Process it in Lightroom, Photoshop or even the stock photo apps that come with your computer such as iPhoto until your happy with it and don't look back! Listen to the friends and mentors who will teach you how to take your photos to the next level. Thanks, It's been an honor!
