Vestrahorn Furnace & RePost

Gallery: LandscapePosted November 1, 2015286 views19 comments

The peaks of the Vestrahorn in southeast Iceland are pretty cool in their own right, but I was really atracted to the volcanic sand dunes and grasses that made up the FG. Compositions including the sand can be pretty frustrating to come by, as the area is popular to serious photographers as well as the selfie crowd sad

. I arrived during some bad weather, which allowed me to have a bit of solitutude which turned out to be some of the best lighting during my trip. This image required 3 images which I hand blended. The first was taken just prior to the sun breaking into the hole in the clouds, the second moments later when the sun was in the break in the clouds, and the last with my finger over the sun while the sun was i the hole in the clodus. This allowed my to avoid the flare artifacts and loss of contrast and detail while still including the sun in the final image.

D810 ISO 64 16-35mm 1/20th sec. @ f16 for 2 exposures, "thumb" exposure 1/6th sec. @ f16.

Comments

19 comments

Comment posted by Basil Greber on November 1, 2015 at 6:03 PM

Stunning light and excellent execution of your capture. I think that the foreground grass is a bit too prominent. It's not a very interesting element, and it takes up a lot of space. I would tend to favor a composition with more sand pattern in the foreground, or then a composition where the peaks are more prominent. Just MHO of course.

Registered on November 8, 2005, 219 Posts, 1340 Comments

Comment posted by Stephen Stanton on November 1, 2015 at 6:09 PM

This light is wondeful, Harry, and really gives a special life to the grasses looks as if they are saluting the new day. A nice contrast and balance to the darker peaks...great sky and sand textures too. Beautiful work.

Registered on March 1, 2015, 54 Posts, 453 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Teller on November 1, 2015 at 10:18 PM

I really like this image. The light is what makes the grass very interesting in the image. The shaft of light moving through the grass to the lower left corner adds a nice element. There is a lot happening in the image that keeps my eye moving through the image. Just a great image.

Registered on August 23, 2010, 1162 Posts, 6692 Comments

Comment posted by Harley Goldman on November 2, 2015 at 10:08 AM

Beautiful! Great light, detail and overall scene. There is a lot going on, but it comes together very well. Sweet!

Registered on November 19, 2003, 586 Posts, 11271 Comments

Comment posted by Roel Wijtmans on November 2, 2015 at 10:31 AM

The blend looks excellent to me. I too was attracted many times to sand and rock patterns in Iceland, they are amazing and surpsingly overlooked. Very nice image! Oh yeah, I may steal your term "thumb exposure", that's a great title for an amazingly simple and effective trick.

Registered on September 30, 2012, 116 Posts, 2257 Comments

Comment posted by Kathy Barnhart on November 2, 2015 at 11:15 AM

This is so superb because of your foresight and processing. Well the comp and colors are pretty great too. Love the low angle you took, allowing the ridges in the sand to show. I like the description of using your thumb to block the sun and will have to try it sometime. It worked very well here. Lots of textures in this image, too. I'm not bothered by having the grass clump up front because there is so much else to see.

Registered on November 11, 2011, 404 Posts, 1639 Comments

Comment posted by Harry Lichtman on November 2, 2015 at 3:24 PM

Thanks for the feedback - Roel - Steal away! I'm pretty sure I didn't come up with it. I'm sure there are many similar techniques out there. My finger or something similarly small allows me to use more of the image surrounding my finger for the blend if needed.

Registered on September 17, 2010, 304 Posts, 3507 Comments

Comment posted by Aaron Feinberg on November 2, 2015 at 3:40 PM

Ridiculously good. Killer shot.

aF

Registered on October 26, 2009, 399 Posts, 2789 Comments

Comment posted by Prashant Khapane on November 2, 2015 at 4:06 PM

stunning light here. Well captured.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 492 Posts, 4580 Comments

Comment posted by Ryan Shain on November 2, 2015 at 9:58 PM

Hi Harry,

First of all, the light is righteous here brother, and wonderful work in processing this image.The composition is very engaging, and I really enjoy how the light is illuminating the grasses. The sand looks great as it starts off darker, and moves to the lighter shades with wonderful patterns.

ALso, I appreciate the explanation of your technique.

Wonderful work devil

Registered on February 20, 2007, 226 Posts, 4571 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on November 2, 2015 at 10:12 PM

Hmmm, the grass in the foreground is key! I love the sinewy curvature of them, which I think adds a strong feeling of "alive" to the scene. The "God-rays" are pretty cool, too, in that they are not the subject of the scene, but are a fine accent.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments

Comment posted by Kory Lidstrom on November 3, 2015 at 2:10 AM

Love the light and color. I wish the camera were a little higher up to create separation between the grass and the mountains and allow the "path" from near to far to be unobstructed. But, for all I know, maybe once you raised the camera, something undesirable was revealed. Regardless, a pretty fine image.

Registered on November 19, 2008, 49 Posts, 1035 Comments

Comment posted by Kory Lidstrom on November 3, 2015 at 2:10 AM

Registered on November 19, 2008, 49 Posts, 1035 Comments

Comment posted by gary phillips on November 3, 2015 at 11:39 AM

Great image, Harry. Love how you handled the dynamic range. The grasses have a wonderful iridescence against the black sand. Really a different take on Iceland and will make a sweet print. I have played around with different ways of blocking the sun, none however, with this degree of success.

Registered on October 24, 2013, 185 Posts, 4136 Comments

Comment posted by D.A. Edwards on November 3, 2015 at 7:32 PM

Wonderful stuff, Harry! There are a lot of different visual highlights in the image from the clouds to the sand and everything in between. I like the contrast between the warm and cold sands. Not a nit from me.

Registered on October 8, 2014, 226 Posts, 1187 Comments

Comment posted by Ian Cameron on November 4, 2015 at 6:16 PM

A beltingly great and believable looking image of a magnificent location. Love it Harry, superb.

Registered on August 6, 2004, 1125 Posts, 3318 Comments

Comment posted by Igor Doncov on November 5, 2015 at 2:47 AM

Wow. This is a remarkable image. Those distinct blades of grass on that black sand are really arresting. This is a really fine crafted image. I can see that a fair amount of post processing time went into this. Everything came together for you on this one. I suspect that if I were looking into the sun those blades of grass would appear much darker than what you show here but painters do that all the time in order to render a stronger composition. I would back off green saturation just a tad in those blades if it were me. They're starting to approach that electric level of coloration.

Registered on November 22, 2014, 189 Posts, 2733 Comments

Comment posted by Harry Lichtman on November 5, 2015 at 6:55 AM

Thanks for the feedback.

Kory - Yes, there was a gravel rd that would be visible if I went too high. But since I wanted to make the sand a more significant part of the shot I needed to be closer to the sand.

Igor - I may have opened the shadows in the grass too much during RAW processing, so I have selected the shadowed grasss and darkened and added more cyan to the mix. Most of the bright grass blades are backlit by the sun so they did have very bright highlights so I am hesitant to tone them down at all. I also think that some of the web sharpening has brightened the grass edges, since they are areas of high contrast to begin with.

Thanks!

Registered on September 17, 2010, 304 Posts, 3507 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Chambers on November 9, 2015 at 9:35 PM

A real beauty!

Registered on April 10, 2005, 753 Posts, 21216 Comments