Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills
The Eastern Sierra is always a safe place to head when you need a break from the hectic pace, and want to get some serious shooting under your belt. And photographing the sunrise from the foothill region, beneath Mount Whitney can be an experience not soon forgotten. I've been here numerous times. In fact, I typically return to almost the exact same places, year after year.....and it's always different. And, since the best shots will be taken facing due west, there's a tremendous change, throughout the year, in the direction of light at sunrise. During mid-june, the sun will rise directly behind you, resulting in very flat, non-descript light on the scene. But come back in the winter, or spring, when the early morning rays eminate from the southeast, and it's very three dimensional and dramatic.
Since the town of Lone Pine is just a couple hundred miles north of LA, it's pretty convenient for me to do this as a spur-of-the-moment excursion.
These images shown here, were taken about an hour after the explosion of color at sunrise. But, still early enough in the day to capture the warmth and dimension of the great morning light.
My objective now, was to retain the snow capped peaks as the backdrop...and, to find a suitable and still typical foreground to improve the overall look of the image. So often, when shooting these grand scenics, the composition suffers because of a lack in fundamental compositional characteristics. Well, I found what was needed. A really nice group of cacti....which are actually not all that common in this area. Luckily, it was in great shape and situated in a nice location for shooting.
Viola! Just what I needed to complete the final image. The only problem was that there was this 20 foot rocky outcropping, just to my left, which was casting a huge shadow completely over my newly discovered foreground.
Damn! The light's changing fast....not much chance I'll find another foreground this nice, in a few minutes, perfectly located in direct sunlight. Not gonna happen!
Well, the only way to make this shot work is to figure out the best way to properly increase the amount of light on the cactus....so, it's equally bright as the background. And, there's really only one option in this situation. If there had been any direct, bright sunlight in my immediate area, a big silver Westcott reflector would have been the answer. But, with that big hill off to the left, we're in some pretty widespread shade. The only option here was to use a flash to fill in the dark areas. The small, pop-up flash, which is built into the camera didn't have a chance under these conditions. I needed to shoot at a very small aperture to maintain the depth of field required to keep both cactus and mountain sharp. The aperture was set to f/22 to be exact....and the wimpy on-board strobe wasn't even close to being up for this challenge. So, I whipped out my external Metz 54-MZ, which definitely has the power needed....but, attaching the flash to the camera's hot shoe would be the easy solution, but not the correct one. This would result in a very obvious problem with the direction of light. The overall scene is lit very strongly from the left...and now we'd have the cactus being illuminated with a light source eminating from the camera. No way. The result would look contrived...AND there would be another problem with a mis-match in the color temperature between the 2 light sources.
The solution here is to hook up a TTL cord to the flash...this will allow the electronic communication to continue between the camera and flash.....while enabling me to position the flash WAY off to the left, so, the angle of flash jives with the sunlight's. But, we still have that nasty color mis-match. The flash unit is producing light which is the color of sunlight at MID DAY...and the sun, now is actually creating a very warm light over the background. Another pretty simple solution. I simply covered the front surface of the flash with a warming gel ( a Lee 1/2 CTO, to be exact ) ...this is a piece of light orange colored celophane, which added the necessary warmth to the flash, and the color balance was achieved!
The second image of a similar problematic situation was fixed using the same technique. The large, lichen covered rock was lit in a similar fashion.
Off-camera, color corrected, TTL-flash-fill......sounds pretty intimidating. But, once you try it, you'll have another tool in your first aid kit, and the skills required to overcome yet, another challenge.
Since the town of Lone Pine is just a couple hundred miles north of LA, it's pretty convenient for me to do this as a spur-of-the-moment excursion.
(image shown above...no flash was used)
These images shown here, were taken about an hour after the explosion of color at sunrise. But, still early enough in the day to capture the warmth and dimension of the great morning light.
My objective now, was to retain the snow capped peaks as the backdrop...and, to find a suitable and still typical foreground to improve the overall look of the image. So often, when shooting these grand scenics, the composition suffers because of a lack in fundamental compositional characteristics. Well, I found what was needed. A really nice group of cacti....which are actually not all that common in this area. Luckily, it was in great shape and situated in a nice location for shooting.
(image shown above...flash off to the left...no warming gel)
Viola! Just what I needed to complete the final image. The only problem was that there was this 20 foot rocky outcropping, just to my left, which was casting a huge shadow completely over my newly discovered foreground.
Damn! The light's changing fast....not much chance I'll find another foreground this nice, in a few minutes, perfectly located in direct sunlight. Not gonna happen!
Well, the only way to make this shot work is to figure out the best way to properly increase the amount of light on the cactus....so, it's equally bright as the background. And, there's really only one option in this situation. If there had been any direct, bright sunlight in my immediate area, a big silver Westcott reflector would have been the answer. But, with that big hill off to the left, we're in some pretty widespread shade. The only option here was to use a flash to fill in the dark areas. The small, pop-up flash, which is built into the camera didn't have a chance under these conditions. I needed to shoot at a very small aperture to maintain the depth of field required to keep both cactus and mountain sharp. The aperture was set to f/22 to be exact....and the wimpy on-board strobe wasn't even close to being up for this challenge. So, I whipped out my external Metz 54-MZ, which definitely has the power needed....but, attaching the flash to the camera's hot shoe would be the easy solution, but not the correct one. This would result in a very obvious problem with the direction of light. The overall scene is lit very strongly from the left...and now we'd have the cactus being illuminated with a light source eminating from the camera. No way. The result would look contrived...AND there would be another problem with a mis-match in the color temperature between the 2 light sources.
(image shown above....flash with warming gel)
The solution here is to hook up a TTL cord to the flash...this will allow the electronic communication to continue between the camera and flash.....while enabling me to position the flash WAY off to the left, so, the angle of flash jives with the sunlight's. But, we still have that nasty color mis-match. The flash unit is producing light which is the color of sunlight at MID DAY...and the sun, now is actually creating a very warm light over the background. Another pretty simple solution. I simply covered the front surface of the flash with a warming gel ( a Lee 1/2 CTO, to be exact ) ...this is a piece of light orange colored celophane, which added the necessary warmth to the flash, and the color balance was achieved!
The second image of a similar problematic situation was fixed using the same technique. The large, lichen covered rock was lit in a similar fashion.
Off-camera, color corrected, TTL-flash-fill......sounds pretty intimidating. But, once you try it, you'll have another tool in your first aid kit, and the skills required to overcome yet, another challenge.
posted by Don Gale at
4:25 PM
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