Entrance to Middle-earth
The big Oparara arche.
The big Oparara arche.
Read less
Read less
Aug, 2018Views
981
Likes
Awards
Community Choice Award
Contest Finalist in The Natural Planet Photo Contest
Peer Award
Superb Composition
Magnificent Capture
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Outstanding Creativity
All Star
Emotions
Impressed
Top Ranks
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 2
Top 20 rank
Categories
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
This shot was taken in the Oparara basin on the west coast of New Zealand's South island ! I was looking for this special arche some locals told me about when I was Wwoofing few hundreds kilometers away. It was the beginning of my roadtrip in New Zealand and I was already changing my plans.Time
I made my way to this remote place after driving for hours on the coast and in the dense forest. I spent the night in the wilderness and reached the arche in the morning. I was alone there and the place was very peaceful and silent.Lighting
Fortunately the weather was quite cloudy and the light diffuse so I did not have to make an HDR by taking two shots, one for the background through the hole and one for the arche itself. So this actually just one shot in RAW.Equipment
I travelled around New Zealand with a Sony a7S II, which is very good for video. I was quite worried about the quality of photos but I actually love the grain of this camera. My lens here is a Canon 24-70mm f4, a classic, adapted to the Sony Camera with a Sigma MC 11 adapter. F4 is good enough for the Sony a7S II which has been the best low light camera on the market for several years now. I didn't have any tripod or flash for this shot.Inspiration
As I was wandering around New Zealand I was thinking about Middle-earth all the time because everything reminded me of Tolkien's masterpiece. To me, this arche is like a gate into this heroic fantasy world. I imagine easily dwarfs or elves walking through this gate.Editing
I always do post-processing. To me, it is a crucial step in photography. Like old film photography being developed in the darkroom or movies being color graded and edited, digital photography needs, in my opinion, edition to complete the whole vision, unless the intention is to simply seize the touch of a specific camera. I mostly worked on curves here to push the blacks higher for a mat texture. I desaturated the colors to get a softer result and added a light black vignette to enclose a bit the arche and emphasize the circle shapes.In my camera bag
I always have my Sony a7S II camera with a CANON 24-70mm f4, a SAMYANG 14mm f2.8, a CANON 75-300mm f4-5.6 and a CANON 50mm f1.8. I also have a Pola filter.Feedback
If you shoot in the forest the best you can hope for is a cloudy weather, because a strong sun does very strong shadows in the woods. Shoot in RAW if you can and underexpose a bit the forest so that the sky is not too much overexposed. In the woods where everything looks pretty much the same, look for the geological curiosity or the weird tree. At the post processing stage you can use the brush and vignette to highlight your subject.
