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Richard Stern
07-22-2008, 10:01 AM
This was the scene from my deck recently just as the sun was setting behind the trees at the end of the property - here in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia.

D300, 18-200VR at 56mm., spot-metered on the clouds above the tree line, ISO 400.

I remeber as a kid my parents telling me that it was very hard for artists to successfully paint the sun's rays - and rightly or wrongly, ever since then, I have derived a special pleasure from seeing them and more recently trying to photograph them.

Richard

Roman Kurywczak
07-22-2008, 10:42 AM
Hi Richard,
You have captured the rays very well and the clouds and silhouette make a strong comp with the ray lines.........but for me this needed a bit more of the base. I don't recall if you were OK with certain manipulations........so my re-post is either a suggestion for next time in the field.........or an example of some PP corrections to further enhance the wonderful image.
I added more of the black to the base by expanding the canvas and removed proportionally off the sky........as the brightest cloud at the top was drawing my eye. I did a simple levels adjustment of 10 on the left slider,,,,,84 on the midtone slider.....and set the right one at 241..........you can play around with them to get the dsired effect. Then I hit it with a bit of local contrast enhancement to give a bit of pop......USM amount 20....Radius 45.......threshold 0. Again........you can play with the intensity here. The only thing that would be considered ethically questionalble in some peoples eyes..........was adding the canvas at bottom..........the rest are just crop and PP tweaks to a wonderfully composed & drmatic skyscape.

Richard Stern
07-22-2008, 11:19 AM
"I added more of the black to the base by expanding the canvas"

Hi, and thanks for the comment. Actually the original image had more canvas at the bottom, which I cropped out as I thought it was distracting!

Richard

Noel Carboni
07-22-2008, 09:32 PM
Beautiful, subtle shading. I agree with Roman's suggestion to increase the weight of the bottom, but I prefer your original pastel coloring to the more contrasty second image.

Keep sharing images like this and I'll keep saying a relaxed "ahhhhhhhhhhh". :)

-Noel

Julie Kenward
07-23-2008, 03:40 PM
Beautiful work Richard. I agree with you that most of the time the black at the bottom is useless but here it tends to balance out the overall composition. I'd follow Roman's lead and put a bit back. Otherwise...this is so beautifully photographed!

Robert Amoruso
07-30-2008, 08:36 AM
Roman had a great suggestion on added more base on the bottom. Great work capturing the "God Rays" here Richard.