Frosty
Oct, 2016Views
691
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Awards
Contest Finalist in Chasing Leaves Photo Contest
People's Choice in Leaves Photo Challenge
Peer Award
Top Choice
Superb Composition
Outstanding Creativity
Absolute Masterpiece
Superior Skill
Magnificent Capture
Genius
All Star
Emotions
Impressed
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Top 20 rankTop 20 rank week 6
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Behind The Lens
Location
This shot was taken in Minnesota at a park/wildlife area near where we lived at the time.Time
This photo was taken just after lunch on a day when the temp was in the upper teens in January. I hadn't noticed until about lunch time that everything outside was still covered in a frost, so I grabbed my camera and went to see what I could find.Lighting
I was looking for something to shoot that would show the frost, but most of the leaves that were still on trees were pretty dull and dead. Nothing really jumped out at me. I was walking up a hill on a trail and stood at the top and looked around but I still didn't really see anything that jumped out at me. I think I took a couple of pictures of others things but wasn't very enthralled by them. As I turned around to head back, these leaves jumped out at me. I had just passed them moments earlier but from the other side they were dull and boring. From this angle, with the light hitting from above and behind, it really made the leaves and the frost just pop. And of course, this was a typical overcast winter day, so that really diffused the light.Equipment
This was shot with a Nikon D300s. I forget which lens I used but I believe it was the 70-300. No flash, just natural light.Inspiration
I really wanted a shot of the leaves (still on the trees in January) with the frost covering them. The frost just really outlines them so vividly.Editing
I filled in the shadows just a little and gave it a little more saturation, just to help give the leaves a little more pop. The vignette was already there, but I think I increased it just a little as well.In my camera bag
Too much!! I always have a hard time deciding, thinking, "what if I see this, or need this, or what if .....". So, I typically try to stick to either my wide angle 12-24 f/4 and a telephoto (like my 70-200 f/2.8), or sometimes I just grab a multipurpose like the 18-140 VR (I love that lens!). If I'm doing something specific, like shooting at night, I'll take specific lenses, but if I am just going out for a photo-walk, then I tend to grab 2 or 3 lenses and probably 2 camera bodies since I never know what I'll come across. That's the fun part of a photo-walk!Feedback
TURN AROUND! I remember reading somewhere about a photographer that shared a lesson about turning around. He was photographing a sunset and while it was a pretty good sunset, he just felt like it wasn't as good as he had hoped. So, he was packing up and getting ready to leave when he turned around to grab something and the light and color from the sunset was falling just right on some "thing" (sorry, can't remember what) behind him, and he scrambled to set up to get this shot that was just completely amazing. So, I always try to keep my head on a swivel to look around at what else and where else the light may be hitting. In this case, I almost missed it because I just kept walking. Luckily, I turned around and captured this great image. Other than that, I stood back and zoomed in on this image to really blur out the background so that the leaves would stand out on their own more. I didn't have a lens with super wide aperture like my f/2.8, so I used the zoom to accomplish the same thing.
