Musings, a photo from Utah, West

Photographer's Note

In the Wasatch Mountains above the cities of Salem and Payson, are some lakes known as Payson Lakes. These lakes are at a high elevation, roughly 3,000m. This location is popular to those who live in the area for boating, camping and fishing. At this elevation autumn comes early, and the aspen were starting to turn in early September.

The air is normally very clear, but on this day, due to numerous forest fires in California and Nevada, the sky was hazey, and was starting to turn an invigorating magenta at sunset.

I looked for a vanatage point where I could setup my 4x5 and tripod and not have any skyline, but after looking at the mirroring of the reflection in the lake, I chose to keep a little sky for repeating shape and a sense of distance.

I used a 210mm lens which for a 35mm would be something like a 70mm (or a 50mm on DSLR). Slighly long, enough to compress the distance slightly.

I needed to keep the foreground that was rather close in focus all the way to infinity, and I didn't want to disort the uprightness of the trees, so I shifted the back to accomodate the foreground and tilted the back to keep the horizontal area in focus for the reflection and used a moderately small aperature to give DOF in the new plane of focus.

Exposure was place on the aspen, to put the brightest areas on zone 6.3, and with the spot meter I could tell pretty well where the shadow was going to infringe into the detail, which was acceptable. I decided not to prexpose the film to get better rendering in the shadows, but to let the shadows be dense for more drama, thus not over emphasizing the sky and shifitng the gradient on the water.

When printing this image on Cibachrome, I could never quite get it to look how I had visualized it when I took it. But with a little work in Lightroom and The Gimp, I have more closely realized the original visualization. I know it has been 7 years since the exposure, but I take detailed notes when I photograph, expecially large format.

Vincelavisse, Boots, Dragonheart, Floydian, bakes888, dpenrod, Xoitchi has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

trinko (2950) 2006-10-23 23:55

very good colors. i like the water although the hint of purple to the right seems a bit off.

Vincelavisse (454) 2006-10-23 23:59

Bonjour Dana

Great picture, the colors are wonderful. The reflection on those golden trees is terrific. TFS,

Vince

Boots (495) 2006-10-24 0:33

i like the composition very much, but i disagree with the other two comments... i think the colours are oversaturated. i know Velvia has a tendency to shift to magenta in highlights, so perhaps that is what happened here, and maybe a saturation boost in software made it more apparent.

i can't help but feel cheated here. the composition is overshadowed by the unnatural colours (and the banding/ lack of detail) in the water and the far mountains on the right. the sky looks suspicously grey for such a colourful foreground and sharp sunlight... is that the smoke at work? i find the contrast heavy, like there is too much drama for such a gentle frame. perhaps pre-exposure wouldn't have hurt.

i am sure that the 200k version of this doesn't compare to the original neg, though (obviously!). the trees are lovely, the composition is very nice... i wish i could see this in its full glory.

great note, too. it is nice to see clear precognizance of intent. but for all that detailed information on the shooting setup, there is little info on what you actually did with Lightroom. and for that matter, how was it scanned?

keep up the info stream!

cheers,

Boots.

[3]

Dragonheart (8434) 2006-10-24 0:48

Excellent capture, amazing contrasting colours, with some beautiful lights. Good POV and framing.
Thanks for sharing
Best wishes
Vivek

Floydian (30970) 2006-10-24 5:08

Hi Dana,
This is a typical Velvia picture. Deep, very deep saturated colours with high contrast. I am looking at it and try to figure out what i don't like.
Maybe it is the dark part in the foreground just in the right corner, some more detail would be rather perfect although it stands in perfect contrast to the dark side on the other side of the river.
That purple against the yellow/greens from the trees is really taking my breath away....excellent
Scanning was and still is the biggest problem but at the end you can be more than satisfied..he looks good, although the large Cibachrome must me awasome.
I like it..!!!
Regards, Henk

dpenrod (27) 2006-10-25 21:19

Hi Dana,

I am thrilled that there are still people like myself that still use film. I just purchased my first 5 rolls of Velvia and can't wait to shoot them. I love your notes. They help those of us that are learning about this wonderful hobby. Also, you can't go wrong shooting in Utah, it's the most beautiful state in the country! You do a fantastic job of showing the rest of the world what it really looks like in the Utah Mountains. I love to see your large format photography. Keep them coming!

jpinkham (870) 2007-01-23 18:48

Simply lovely, Dana. Great clarity. Wonderful colors -- nice compo, especially with the trees mirrored in the water and the dynamic line of trees and shore. Effectively cropped. TFS.

bakes888 (18499) 2007-02-26 2:00

Hi Dana. Wow, great photo and interesting note. I bet this was a lovely place to visit. I love the colour you have captured in this shot. You obviously take photography very seriously. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers, Paul.

madhumita_roy86 (2344) 2010-09-15 10:36