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Afternoon Radiance

Posted by
Darkelf Photography (Perth, Australia) on 20 May 2024 in Landscape & Rural.

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I am back from my break, which took a little longer than I originally anticipated, and I am continuing with another photo from New Zealand. This one comes from the area near Aoraki Mount Cook village in the heart of the Southern Alps. It is a photo taken with a very similar approach to the previous one, in terms of not planning for it and just making the most of the conditions at the time.

We went out in the early afternoon to do the Hooker Valley Trail with an intention to stay until sunset if conditions were favourable. The trail itself is worth doing, regardless of any photographic vision and idea. It leads through a beautiful valley along Hooker River towards the Hooker Lake, where you can see a fantastic view of Mount Cook. When we did the trail a few years earlier, we left it a bit too late in the day, so this time we departed early enough to have enough time to take as long as we wanted along the way.

After reaching our destination and hanging about for a couple of hours, I realised that conditions were not exactly what I was looking for. Mount Cook was unfortunately hidden behind low clouds which were continuously circling around it. There were also no high clouds so the odds were not looking great for a spectacular sunset. Because of that, we decided to head back earlier to see if conditions would improve as we got back to the village. We carried a bit of excess clothing unnecessary but it would have been needed for the cold evening ahead if we stayed as long as we wanted to.

As we were getting close to the first swing bridge (counting from the start of the trail), I noticed the light glow and clouds over Mount Sefton, past Muller Lake in the foreground. The light had a mystic and ethereal quality about it. It was beautifully diffused by the thin, film like, layer of clouds, and it nicely illuminated the valley below in the foreground. I simply found something enchanting about this scene and stopped to take a couple of photos. It was still quite bright and I did not need to set up a tripod, as I was able to get a fast shutter speed. I considered quickly whether exposure bracketing would be required but after checking the first image I took, I knew that I had enough dynamic range to cover the scene in a single frame.

Post processing work on this image was reasonably straight forward. I had to balance the light in the foreground as it was a bit darker to start off with. The reason for it was that I exposed to ensure that I did not blow out any highlights in the sky and water. Shadow recovery is a lot easier with today's cameras and it worked very well here. I still remember the days of my 5D mark II and III cameras. They were great to shoot with but very unforgiving in terms of opening up shadows, especially as I was not bracketing exposures as yet back then. From there, I worked on the contrast (global and local), applied subtle colour grading, and finished off with a free hand vignette to shape the light a little further right at the end.

Another reason why I liked this scene was that play between light and shadows created good depth and dimension here. I did not need to adjust too much to emphasise it just a little further in processing. I am usually reluctant to post images taken during brighter daylight hours but in this case I think the light warranted my attention and I like the way the imaged worked out.

Canon EOS R5 1/200 second F/8.0 ISO 100 24 mm

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