HOME | DD

Description
Last night I was debating weather or not I should go here. I looked at weather forecasts for Quincy and Portola, and they both said that it was partly cloudy, so I decided to head off into the mountains and see what happened.

I originally planned to get some wildlife shots, but a 200mm lens is not enough for finicky birds, so I drove around searching for compositions.

I found this composition at a place called Mosquito Sloughs, there were a ton of mosquitoes.

I set up this composition about 30-45 minutes before sunrise, then kept seeing places that looked a little better than the last. At first I wanted to place the log on the right hand side of the frame, but then no light hit the log and it looked out of place. I liked the way the mountains fell off on the right. So I readjusted the camera so the log was on the right. This a bit of a challenge because I still wanted a wide view, but to the left of the frame was the arm of the cove I was in, and if I wasn't careful I would get that in my composition. I worked that around and made sure everything was set for when sunset hit.

As the sun began to set I witnessed one of the greatest sunsets of my life! It lasted for roughly an hour. I was so happy I decided to go to Lake Davis.

I used a Circular Polarizer in this shot. Without it the clouds were barely visible.

In photoshop I merged two exposures that are roughly 1 stop away from each other. I turned down the saturation on the red channel just a bit as well.

:thumb137593792: :thumb135870323:

Description
Last night I was debating weather or not I should go here. I looked at weather forecasts for Quincy and Portola, and they both said that it was partly cloudy, so I decided to head off into the mountains and see what happened.

I originally planned to get some wildlife shots, but a 200mm lens is not enough for finicky birds, so I drove around searching for compositions.

I found this composition at a place called Mosquito Sloughs, there were a ton of mosquitoes.

I set up this composition about 30-45 minutes before sunrise, then kept seeing places that looked a little better than the last. At first I wanted to place the log on the right hand side of the frame, but then no light hit the log and it looked out of place. I liked the way the mountains fell off on the right. So I readjusted the camera so the log was on the right. This a bit of a challenge because I still wanted a wide view, but to the left of the frame was the arm of the cove I was in, and if I wasn't careful I would get that in my composition. I worked that around and made sure everything was set for when sunset hit.

As the sun began to set I witnessed one of the greatest sunsets of my life! It lasted for roughly an hour. I was so happy I decided to go to Lake Davis.

I used a Circular Polarizer in this shot. Without it the clouds were barely visible.

In photoshop I merged two exposures that are roughly 1 stop away from each other. I turned down the saturation on the red channel just a bit as well.

:thumb137593792: :thumb135870323: