gertwallis

Farmhouse Tuscany

Canon EOS 5D

settings

Aperture f/8.0 ISO 200 Shutter 1/320 Focal Length 105/1

upload_date

Apr, 2015

Views

2128

Likes

+393

Awards

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Outstanding Creativity

+12

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Behind The Lens

Location

In celebration of our 21 wedding anniversary myself and my wife treated ourselves to a vacation, with a week in Croatia, traveling by ferry to Venice and then via Cincque Terre we ended up in Tuscany. We were driving south from Sienna towards Montalcino in Tuscany. The narrow winding roads makes it difficult to safely stop. Next time in this region I will hire a Vespa scooter to safely park on the shoulder whenever the scenery inspires me to stop.

Time

We had gotten up before dawn to catch some of the early light. The previous nights rain caused patchy fog which settled into the lower areas of the valley's. It was one of those times where you are realize this light is gorgeous and it is going to disappear once the sun is fully over the horizon. I was racing down the road, shouting to myself: "I NEED A SUBJECT, I NEED A SUBJECT - PLEASE." This was the first photograph of the day and I did not even get out of the car to take it. It was taken at 6:43 am on June 27, 2013.

Lighting

The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon without yet fully illuminating the landscape. The strong side lighting accentuated the rolling landscape, causing very nice long shadows. The mistiness of the early morning fog diffused the light which gave a everything a soft dreamy texture.

Equipment

The photo was taken with a Canon 5D (classic) using a 24-105 f4L lens. It was handheld, and with 3 bracketed exposures 2 stops apart. This particular photo is the two stop underexposed (according to the light meter) one. This ended up bein at 1/320 sec at f8.

Inspiration

I was drawn by the s-curve leading your eye into the photograph, ending up at the farmhouse which forms the main focal point of the whole composition. The repetition of the cyprus trees helps to accentuate this line with the shadows creating a nice pattern. There are multiple sub compositions inside this photo which can stand on it's own. Unfortunately I was time constrained and didn't have a long lens to explore these options.

Editing

Even though I bracketed and generated HDR compositions, the "raw" image was more appealing. All of the post processing was done in by tweaking the basic sliders in Lightroom. I wanted to maximize the contrast without giving it the grungy look typical of HDR. This was done by: Highlights: Pulled all the way to left. Shadows: Pushed all the way to the right. Whites: Pushed to the right until clipping appears. (Keep alt key pressed in while sliding) Blacks: Pushed to the left until clipping appears. Boosted clarity halfway to the right. To finish off I added a small amount of vignetting to darken the borders.

In my camera bag

I always have my Canon 6D with 40mm f2.8 STM lens with me. The compactness of this setup allows me to stuff it into a large coat or sweater pocket. For this vacation we travelled very light and what equipment to take was a difficult choice. For my clothes I had only a carry-on sized bag. For an equipment bag I had a small Swiss Army sling bag with only space for one additional lens, and a small netbook computer. In addition to the 40mm I also had a Sigma 12-22mm F4 and the Canon 25 - 105 F4L IS lenses. In my bigger bag, I have the Canon 70-200 F2.8L IS and Canon 100-400 F4L lenses.

Feedback

Going with a photographer on vacation is always a challenge for the rest of the family. To accomplish this you have to compromise on the time you would normally spend to "work" a subject. I would have loved spending more time here but this is the only photograph I have of this scene. Your traveling companions doesn't always share your enthusiasm to get up before dawn and shooting at sunset when you should be having a nice relaxing dinner accompanied with a glass of wine. In order to work efficiently, you have to develop your eye by looking at lots of photographs, understanding why certain compositions are more appealing than others. You have to learn how to use your equipment so you know how to grasp the photographic opportunity when it presents itself. This can only be accomplished if you have a good grasp of the fundamentals of composition and mastery of your equipment. This will let you know when to slam on the brakes and when to speed up when you are chasing the light on some winding backroad in the Tuscany countryside.

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gertwallis

gertwallis

Farmhouse Tuscany

Behind The Lens

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