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Granite Planet

Posted by
Darkelf Photography (Perth, Australia) on 17 October 2023 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

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With today's photo I am taking another trip into the granite country, and specifically the granite outcrops located in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. I have explained previously about the nature of this place when I posted an image titled Last Breath of Light a few weeks ago. A common feature of the granite mounds are boulders scattered around the outcrops. They vary in shapes, sizes, and degree to which they have broken up over time. Sometimes there can be one only one or two small ones, however, often there is a line of bigger massive boulders, and that was the case here at the top of Billyacatting Hill.

The photo I posted previously was taken later on the same evening at the base of the hill. For this image, I climbed up the hill in the late afternoon to see whether I could get a decent photo with these massive rocks at sunset. This line up was situated right near the highest point. I have seen a few of these formations now and it still amazes me of how neatly the boulders are stacked together. Centuries and centuries of erosion have created art which can be truly unparalleled at times. They seem like they were placed there on purpose by giant cranes. From a distance they often look fairly innocuous but when one get close to them, the realisation of their true size and nature really hits home.

We climbed the hill earlier so I knew where I wanted to go and I went up on the day with enough time to be able to scout the planned location and explore different angles of the rocks. I walked around them a few times and prepared for various possibilities depending on the light around sunset. I did like this perspective the best because I was able to catch the remaining clouds and their colours as the sun was going down. There were not too many clouds when facing away in opposite direction and I definitely wanted clouds for this image. I liked the foreground textures which I though led in well towards the main part of the scene. This angle also seemed to work the best in my mind for the distribution of rocks through the frame. I was able to avoid having just a flat line of boulders and I felt that this helped with the perception of depth for the photo.

Exposure and balancing the light was a little tricky. Unless I wanted a dark or silhouetted look, I knew that I had to bracket exposures to cover the dynamic range of the scene. I blended two exposures for this image, one for the sky and one for the rocky foreground. With the brightest patch of the sky right behind the boulders, it was not an easy transition to manage but with the tools available today in edition software it is not as hard as it used to be. I learned very quickly about luminosity masks when I first head of them but for a long time I struggled with their use, and results I used to get were pretty uninspiring. I am bit more confident with using masks these days and I have to admit that it has opened up many new possibilities for me. I still shoot with graduated filters in the field, as I like the get the balance as right as possible in the camera but in high contrast situations it is just not possible to cover the entire dynamic range with one exposure.

I loved the way the orange/bronze hues of the rocks matched the colour in the clouds, and I usually look for a theme which unifies the scene for me. I understand that the colour of the rocks is due to the iron deposits. The lighter patches around the foreground are a kind of lichen. I feel that the best time to visit these locations is in the spring. The granite hills come to life after winter rains. There is good vegetation about, sometimes a bit of moss, and as you might have seen in the other photo I mentioned, there can be an abundance of beautiful windflowers. This scene is a little bit more raw and rugged but I loved it all the same. When one day we stop travelling outside of Australia, I definitely intend to spend more time exploring these wonderful places and discovering what hidden beauties are still to be found in our own backyard.

Canon EOS R5 1/10 second F/8.0 ISO 100 15 mm

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