There’s so much composite landscape photography getting around these days, that whenever someone produces something real it’s almost implied it’s fake. The effort required to capture these scenes really isn’t that hard, but you’ve gone to the trouble of travelling to the location, spend the money on good gear and invest the time required to build up the skills to capture the scene. All you need is a little help with the execution. With my latest image, I have added a link to my Facebook page with screen shots of the Raw files and a brief description of how I captured the two sets of images. I then included the blending technique to make it all look realistic. Seriously, stop giving your money to all these stock image companies, the photographer gets bugger all from the sales. It’s so easy to fall into the trap! I was running a workshop in Canada for OOAK and towards the end of the trip; we had a few nights at the amazing Mt Assiniboine British Columbia. Now the first thing you need to do is check the weather, this sort of image will be impossible with complete cloud cover and it’s not much point hanging around, waiting for the bears to eat you, if the clouds wont part. So with clear skies, you find the right composition and get set up for many hours, you first need to capture the twilight scene and then wait, beer in hand for the milky way to appear. This part can take several hours but patience is the key requirement. I find shooting with a group helps with passing the time or an electronic distraction device of your choice, to help the wait seem a little less agonising, or to ward off the paranoia of potentially becoming bear food. Once you have shot the two sets, it’s time to hike back to the campsite, avoiding the now starving bears and get some well-earned sleep, here’s a tip for you, try not sharing a tent with a snorer. Once I’m safely back at my computer I then process the two sets individually, as the settings for both sets should be completely different. The twilight set would be at the lowest ISO setting, tack sharp for the whole scene and the best DOF. The Milky Way set should be high ISO to capture all those amazing stars and coloured galaxies focusing on the sky, not the foreground. Once you have the two sets open in Affinity Photo or whatever software you use it’s time to start aligning the two sets, blending them for realism and then doing your normal processing to give it the WOW factor we all desire. So now you have the tools to do this without much fuss, get out there and give it a try, I’d love to see the final results. If you have any questions please just give me a shout! RAW FILES
Awakening of the Beast
