LeighH

The Dead Tree, Parkeyerring Lake

NIKON D3200

settings

Aperture 22/1 ISO 100 Shutter 1/50 Focal Length 18/1

upload_date

Jun, 2016

Views

121

Likes

+10

Awards

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Behind The Lens

Location

Parkeyerring Lake, South of the town of Wagin, Western Australia

Time

This photo is part of a greater number of photos taken just after 5pm in the afternoon, just before the sun rapidly drops below the horizon. Timing is everything with the wheatbelt, as the light rapidly changes late in the afternoon, and you need to get prepared for the conditions, before they happen.

Lighting

Late summer, early autumn sunlight, hot and overbearing glare during the day. But cools very quickly into evening, with a more mellow sunlight, just don't blink, or you miss it. With this photo, I had visited the spot before, and had a good idea what light conditions I would need, so I prepared the next trip south, with this destination, and more importantly, time of destination in mind.

Equipment

Nikon D3200 with a standard 18/ 55 lens.

Inspiration

I use to travel south for work every fortnight at the time of the photo, and I saw this Lake on the way home, and it was stunning, just the colours, the trees, absolutely beautiful. The first time the Lake was low with water, half full, with salt pans across the rim. 6 weeks later the early winter rains hit, and the Lake changed colour. Every visit to the Lake was completely different, different light, different colour tones, no two visits or photos are the same, just magic. This photo was taken after the first rains had filtered through the surrounding farmlands, and washed into the lake, semi-submerging the tree stumps, and re-liquefying the salt.

Editing

With this photo, all was needed was a small crop to remove excess clutter, tone down the glare a little, and increased the colour density and intensity of the blue, that's it. If I was to redo the photo, I would also decrease the hue, just to add a little warmth to the scene.

In my camera bag

Currently the Nikon D3200 and a 18/ 140 lens, and a pile of sd memory cards, food, and a water bottle. I like to keep moving, and I will happily cover a lot of km's on foot looking for photo's, as such, I travel and pack very light. The simplicity, just means I keep experimenting with location, timing and camera settings, to get the photo's that I want.

Feedback

Preparation is the key, not only for your current photo trip, or set, but for the next one. I will often stop and take a sample photos of locations that look good, even when the light, or time conditions are not right, so I can study the images later on the laptop, and then think through what light conditions would suit the location. For me, keep moving, change locations, or positions on a location, different perspectives open doors to more opportunities. Where I live, Time, Location and Light are the keys to a good image.

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LeighH

LeighH

The Dead Tree, Parkeyerring Lake

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow LeighH

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