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Today's seascape takes us to our most recent trip to Albany and Denmark in Western Australia. These two locations were on our list of places to re-visit for some time. Last time we went to the beautiful Elephant Cove near the town of Denmark was eleven years ago. I have to say that if these were the kind of conditions that we had to wait such a long time for, then it was completely worth it.
There were numerous storms passing by around the area. I tried unsuccessfully to chase some of them during the day but gave up in the end and headed to our planned destination - Elephant Cove. The conditions were looking alright, however, right until sunset I was not sure if the clouds would light up with beautiful colours. There was always a chance that a new band of clouds would cover the horizon but luckily that did not take place.
The colours did arrive and the overall mood of the evening was unlike anything I ever experienced before. Warm light illuminating and seeping through heavy clouds made the entire place look like a fiery furnace. When I took first photos using daylight colour temperature, the results on my LCD screen looked like they were taken on Mars and the red channel was clipping severely. I had to drop the colour temperature down to control the yellow, orange and red tones.
In terms of the entire process from taking the shot and then post processing, this was one of the most challenging scenes to do. Once I settled on a composition, how to control the exposure and tones became my main consideration. Using a combination of filters and multiple exposure helped me to capture as much information as possible for post processing. Later, the creative decisions were focused on how much warmth and colour to retain in the scene to accurately reflect how it looked and felt at the time, without it looking too saturated and unreal. I wanted the viewer to feel the warmth of the balmy evening and the effect that the light had. I did not want them to feel like they were in a middle of a radioactive reaction though. I hope I managed that balance at least in some way.
It was a "difficult" shoot also because I could turn almost in any direction I wanted to find something brilliant and interesting to photograph. It took some discipline to minimise the distraction that the abundance of compositions provided and focus on the main vision that I had prior to arrival. Arriving early and exploring the area allowed me the time and opportunity to take different photos before sunset so I was nicely settled once the main event started to happen around me.
We all experience unforgettable moments in our life. Outside of my personal and family life, the kind of unforgettable moments that I like to experience the most happen when we are out in nature and photography has certainly allowed me to be a part of many such occasions, which otherwise I might have not had a chance to see. This was most definitely one of them and now I am happy to share it with you as well.
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This image has been featured in 1 Remix collection.