Fire in the sky...

[Morkel Erasmus]

I created this image this past December on the South African West Coast. The coastline is basically endless stretches of open beach, with very little in terms of interesting rock formations and almost no mountains. This makes composing tricky.

On this occasion the clouds and sunset came through for me.

Techs:
Canon 1000D with 18-55mm IS @ 18mm
f16 @ ISO-100
3 exposures blended in Photomatix with extra PP in CS3
tripod-mounted

[Dave Mills]

Hi Morkel, beautiful job on this. Your right about certain areas lacking a foreground but in this case you creatively used the reflected light as foreground interest. Nice use of the HDR along with a dramatic sky!!

[Robert Amoruso]

Agree with Dave.

Morkel, if your looking at the other posts you will notice I frequently mention you need to look for light, texture, pattern or motion (think wave action in slow speed) to add that visual interest in the FG. Combining them all the better.

As I live near a seashore with 27 miles of no FG, this is what I do. Many times I get no images at all. Sometimes it all works out winderfully.

[Vida van der Walt]

Love the colours, clouds, lines and reflections in this beautiful image.:)

[Nick Palmieri]

Nice HDR work... I agree that the use of the reflection in the FG works well.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Morkel,
I think this works for all the reasons mentioned above but I want to also comment on something Robert touched on.....think slower SS for even more action and interesting wave effects......I love the Singh Ray vari ND filter but $$$$......yet there are less costly alternatives that will give excellent results. Overall very well done!

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the kind feedback everyone...I do wish I had a grad filter but I still need to save up for a decent wide angle lens which can actually TAKE a filter :)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Morkel.....don't laugh but when I had the lee solid 3 stop ND filters....I often hand held them in front! Will also work when you upgrade!

[Morkel Erasmus]

hehe thanks for the tip!! :)

[Kobus Tollig]

Nice one bud. Colours are really nice here

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks bud!