Cows in the mist
Nov, 2019Views
222
Likes
Awards
Elite
Peer Award
Superb Composition
Top Choice
Superior Skill
Outstanding Creativity
Magnificent Capture
Emotions
Impressed
Top Ranks
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 20 rank
Categories
Platinum
jackiegoodwin
November 19, 2019
very atmospheric - thank you for entering your lovely photo into my challenge "animals of any kind" - good luck
Platinum
Ultimate
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken in the fields in front of our house in Zerkegem, Belgium. Zerkegem is a small country village about 10 miles southwest of the medieval city of Bruges, known for the movie The Monuments MenTime
The weather forecast predicted a cold night with fog in the morning. I set my alarm for 5 am. It is only a 5 minute walk from my house to the meadows. At 5:20 am I was installed and ready for the sunrise. Unfortunately, there was no spectacular blue hour. The cows were still on the ground. It took another half hour for the sun rose above the trees. When the first rays of sun hit the grass, the cows got up and walked over to me. It was 6 am when I took this photo.Lighting
Photographing fog is always a challenge. Backlighting is a good option to reveal fog in a photo. The cows were curious and walked slowly towards me. I had to make a loud noise. They stopped and looked at me for a while. At that moment the sun was partially covered by the trees and the back of the meadows was lit with an orange glow. I wanted to wait for the sun to completely illuminate the back of the pastures from side to side, but the cows thought otherwise and continued on their way to stop just 3 feet in front of my camera.Equipment
The photo was shot on a Fujifilm X-T3 with a Fujinon XF 16-55 mm F2.8 and a tripod.Inspiration
The initial idea was to take a pictorialism style picture. I covered my lens with a nylon stocking so I could project an emotional intent into the viewer's realm of imagination. Luckely I decided to uncover my lens and take the photo the classic way of doing. Altough you can not see clairly the emotion of the cows, there is still the feeling of a beautiful pastoral beginning of the morning.Editing
With sunrise and sunset I tend to take multiple exposures to avoid a blown out sun. For this picture I took 7 different exposures (-3/-2/-1/0/+1/+2/+3). These exposures were combined in Aurora 2019 to one HDR picture. Afterwords I took out some of the fencing and a lighting pole in Photoshop.In my camera bag
The equipment I normally have in my bag, depends if I am travelling in Belgium or abroad. When I am in a foreign country, I usually have my Fujifilm X-T3 with the Fujinon XF 16-55mm and the Laowa 9mm (with a big stopper) in my bag. That way I am travelling light and able to take a broad range of pictures.Feedback
Knowledge of the local weather comes in handy. I know there are apps that predict the presence of fog. For sunset and sunrise I tend to use photoephemeris to see where the sun will be, so I can decide where to position my camera. To be safe, I recommand to take multiple exposures. That way you have the possibility to use them in postprocessing with a dedicated HDR software or with luminosity masks in Photoshop.
