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Ethereal sunset mood at Lake Dowerin with strange dead trees and surreal feeling to the landscape. Long exposure seemed like the perfect expression for this scene. We have many salt lakes in Western Australia and they all have their unique atmosphere. I only just stated to discover their beauty in the last few years. Today's photo comes from our last travels which took place in September this year. It also fits this week's 'angular' theme on Aminus3 a little, with its various tree arrangements, especially in the foreground.
We spent most of that day driving around the Wheatbelt region to the east of Perth, exploring various salt lakes to find one that could present interesting photographic opportunities for the evening. I was looking for either fine textures and patterns of the lake surface or for some dead trees to work with in my composition. One thing we did not expect was the amount of rain that had fallen recently in the area. Because the surfaces were still very wet and muddy, that limited my scoping to mostly around the edges of the lakes. There was little possibility of venturing further in between the trees. I did not want to disturb the environment too much and that was only achievable on hard dry surfaces. We found this spot at Lake Dowerin and this is as close as I was able to get, right on the outer edge of the lake. I had to be careful to when stepping forward to make sure I landed on solid enough ground and that I did not step on any shrubs and other plants in the process. I was able to use some of the dead logs buried in the mud to make my way to this location. A couple of times when I slipped or overstepped, my boots were quickly covered with smelly mud.
Luckily, I could find some interesting compositions once I got there. It would have been disappointing to make all this effort and to have to make my way back without taking a photo, which is always a possibility. I kept my 24-105mm lens on this time, which allowed me to go from wide enough to photograph a larger scene, to be able to zoom in further if I could not find anything close to me. This particular composition caught my eye because of the triangular lines formed by the dead long on the ground. They opened up nicely to reveal reflections in the water and allowed space for the tall dead tree in the background to complete the photo. I just felt a natural balance and flow here. I possibly wish that I could get a little closer to open up more of that reflection but that is just a minor thought as I liked what a saw very much.
My initial intention was to take long exposure photos for black and white processing later on but the light on the day and then looking at the images at home changed my mind. There was a lovely glow as the sun found a small gap to shine through moments before sunset. I also loved the transition from cool to warm tones in the sky and the warm highlights in the foreground which added good depth and dimension to the landscape. For most of the time that I spent there, the conditions were almost monochrome with little colour and mostly various shades of grey visible to my eyes. However, I was glad to see some colour come through and that really changed the scene around me. I do not know whether I mentioned that before but I shoot in RAW format and I set my camera display to either neutral of faithful so in greyish conditions the photos will usually appear flat and lifeless on the rear screen. I know though, that when I get home, I will be able to see them a lot better and noticing the subtle tones in this image helped me to decide to stay with a colour version.
Because I shoot RAW, I will always make white balance, contrast, colour and exposure adjustments myself in post processing. Sometimes they are fairly simple, sometimes they become a bit more complex and advanced. That all depends on each scene and on my vision. I like to have that control and it is a part of my artistic process. Often I will tweak the tones, to larger or lesser degree, to suit my vision and to reflect how the scene and moment felt to me at the time. I want to present what I saw but I am not essentially what you would call a documentary photographer. My vision is always beyond that and, for example, putting on a dark filer to shoot a long exposure is already a manipulation of the scene, regardless of anything else that I choose to do later. Light, mood, feelings and emotions are what drives my photography.
I was originally thinking of a title for this photo to reflect a strange alien mood but also changed my mind later as I was editing the image. Standing there, taking the long exposure, seeing the light and colour glow come through the clouds, that all really felt like the moments before dreaming, and beautiful moments they were indeed.
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This image has been featured in 1 Remix collection.