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I was thinking of posting this photo next and then it just worked out perfectly with this week's prompt.
Exploring the Oparara Basin Arches in New Zealand really felt like walking into the realm of the Lord of the Rings. Lush rainforest, whisky coloured rivers, and massive geological formations, made for an unforgettable experience. This one is the aptly named Moria Gate Arch. It did not actually feature in any of the films as far as I know, but I think that the locals have taken to naming places after locations in the world of Tolkien fantasy. I quite support that idea!
This seems to be a lesser known location, hidden in the top parts of the west coast. We almost did not make it to that spot because of a simple oversight. When we arrived in our accommodation in the afternoon, I started to plan for the next couple of days, and to my shock I read that the road to the arches was closed on weekdays for maintenance and upgrades. I should have checked up on it earlier but for some reason it skipped my mind. As it was a Sunday, I realised that we could as least still try to make it there before sunset. We packed up as quickly as we could, and drove towards the Oparara River Basin. Luckily we arrived there with just under two hours of daylight left. That was enough time for us to get to the main parts - Moria Gate and Oparara Arch, and I am still glad to this day that we rushed to get there.
There was no one else around and we had this spectacular location all to ourselves for the evening. When I researched this place, it was the Moria Arch which caught my attention for photography and this is where we headed to first. After a lovely stroll through rainforest, we had to climb down through a tight opening in the rocks to get down to the river. The sight which opened up before our eyes was breathtaking. The big solid rock arch sitting over a brown tannin hued river, surrounded by rainforest was like being transported into Middle Earth. Beautiful sand patterns and sounds of nature, mostly birds roaming around, completed the scene. It is amazing to know that such places still exist.
There were two obvious points for composition. First was looking from outside the arch towards the tunnel and rainforest beyond (this one). Second was from inside the cave/arch looking out towards the tunnel openings. I did wish we had a bit more time to take this landscape in and to give more consideration to possible compositions but I was glad that we had any time at all, and quickly set up to take some photos. I tried a number of compositions at various focal lengths from this viewpoint. Some had the entire arch and above in the frame. Some had focus closer on the opening towards the other side. For this image, I still went with a wide angle lens at its widest but I physically moved closer to the arch to get the composition I wanted. It reduced some of the forest clutter in the river and around the arch, while enabling the brown water and sand to be more prominent in the foreground. I also liked how the sand patches all curved inwards towards the opening.
There was no other options than to bracket exposures to get the maximum dynamic range for this scene. Middle of the arch was dark while foreground and opening were quite bright, and it was not an easy exposure to manage. Getting the flow in the river looking good was another consideration in terms of the shutter speeds which I was going to use. I wanted it smooth enough to reveal the sand but I did not want just an overblown patch where the light was being reflected. Exposure blending came to the rescue here again. Once I had the base exposure balanced, I worked on the image through dodging and burning to enhance depth and dimension of the arch. The mid part of the scene was especially critical to me. This is where I worked on the contrast under the arch to bring out brighter detail without mudding up the shadows too much. It was the darkest part of the image and I wanted to keep it that way while giving it enough texture to provide additional interest.
I am very happy with the final image but also, a good lesson was learnt for next time. Always check local road conditions in advance otherwise you might find yourself disappointed, as we nearly did in this instance. After seeing the arches, I definitely would not have been happy if we did not make it there. That was a great discovery in the early stages of our trip, and one of my favourite locations which we visited during the entire journey.
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This image has been featured in 1 Remix collection.