Gudvangen Cruise, Norway
Apr, 2017Views
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Awards
Zenith Award
Top Shot Award 22
Contest Finalist in Spectacular Lakes Photo Contest
Contest Finalist in Rule Of Seconds Photo Contest vol1
Peer Award
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Superb Composition
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Outstanding Creativity
Magnificent Capture
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Behind The Lens
Location
It was a holiday travelling in Norway, passing Gudvangen, a beautiful village in Aurland Municipality in Vestland county. It was a stop-over for everybody to make a transfer to the cruise (or bus if reverse direction) as part of the local group tour journey to Flam from Bergen.Time
It was March where winter is slowly receding and the picture was taken at around 11.30am.Lighting
It was still quite the winter gloom with layers of dull clouds where only occasionally you can see the blue sky. The overall lighting was not fantastic and the water and mountains gave a bluish grey feel at the time of the day. The sky was very glaring. I don't have a ND filter with me, so I have to try balance the dark and brightness part of the photo. I then decided to overexpose the sky a bit, since it is not interesting, and revealed more details of the reflection and the mountains.Equipment
This was a hand held shot using the Olympus EM-1 with a 12-40mm (full frame 24-80mm) lens at ISO400.Inspiration
I liked the interesting focus point where the lines of the mountains intersect each other and the stillness of the reflection from the water. But I thought the foreground was quite boring and lifeless, so I waited for the cruise ship to steer in. It was not long when I saw the ship from a distant slowly cruising in. I waited for the ship to pass the intersecting point before the shot was taken. It turned out that the blurry refection of the cruise ship does give the picture some motion and life.Editing
As I purposely expose for the foreground, the original sky was over-expose slightly. The bluish grey of the lighting also did not stand out too well. So what I did was give the photo more contrast, adjusted the vibrancy and shadows and brightness and temperature. I also did some localise sharpening to give the photo a more distinctive outlook. The photo was not cropped.In my camera bag
That will be my trusted Olympus EM1 body. Most of the time I would bring along the 12-40mm (mid zoom), 40-150mm (long zoom) and the 60mm macro lens. For tripod, it will be my Sirui red colour aluminium body tripod. As it is holidaying, I preferred to travel with less bulky gears thus I like the micro 4/3 system for its lightweight and generally smaller size lens where all can be packed into a standard size holiday back pack.Feedback
In travelling, due to the constant moving from point to point, it is more difficult to research out the place and find the vantage point or blue hour for shooting. So I believe, travelling photography trains anyone to look for the interesting composition (sometime with only a short window of opportunity) and to decide how to capture the shot with just your camera and lens. I also recommend a versatile zoom lens, like the 12-40mm I use, which suit most scenario.
