Hubbards Glacier Calving

[Stephen Stephen]

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s219/Squidcan/Landscapes/Hubbard3b.jpg

I created this image last July while my wife and I were on a cruise to Alaska. Although our ship had at least 8 decks above the waterline it only had a draught of 24 feet. We were able to get in very close to the glacier's face.

While it wasn't calving extremely large pieces it certainly was active. I know that the splash is almost in the dead centre of the frame but I had to reacte to the sound of cracking ice and then try and find where it was falling along quite a wide distance. I was just plased to ahve captured a touch of the action.

From Wikipedia "Hubbard Glacier is a tidewater glacier in the U.S. State of Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada. From its source in the Yukon, the glacier stretches 122 km (76 mi) to the sea at Yakutat Bay and Disenchantment Bay. It is the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska, with an open calving face over ten kilometers (6 mi) wide."

Rebel XT and Sigma 50-500, ISO 400

[Steve Maxson]

Calving glaciers are cool (so to speak), Stephen. I really like the blue colors that you find in glacial ice. Nice job capturing the splash. Good detail and DOF. I used to see this a lot when I was doing research in Antarctica years ago. The splash is followed by a large wave that you want to avoid if you are in a small boat like a Zodiac.

[David Kennedy]

Stephen,
I thought this image had a lot of potential, so I took it into LAB color and first tweaked the Lightness curve to give it some punch. There was a bit of a yellow cast to it that I all but eliminated (completely removing it took something away from the image). Also, I would suggest cropping from the left to eliminate the dark spot in the lower LH corner, as well as some noise reduction in the clouds above. I wasn't sure about the rotation so I decided just to focus on the color in this tweak I'm presenting.

Cheers,
David

[Grady Weed]

Looking at the 2 here, it seems that the raw could stand to be tweaked. Although the redo by Dave, to me, has too much blue. But he is on the right track. However I was not there and Stephen was. The image as a composition is powerful and very exciting. Next time you go, pack my wife and I along as butler and maid. :) Thanks for sharing. Just dynamite.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Stephen,
I agree with David.........there is a slight yellow cast and noise in the skt........but I also agre with Grady...that he may have gone a little too much on the blues. Another option.......just adjust the levels slider of the blacks......and maybe a little blue color balance. These are all just tweaks. Having been there.....and trying to time this.......it is very difficult. It looks like a squre crop........would prefer a little off bottom......and maybe a hair off top. Overall........I like the mood and comp.....so well done,
Roman

[Stephen Stephen]

Thank you Steve, David, Grady and Roman. I probably left the saturation too low here. We where in the Bay for about 2 hours as we gradually made our way to the Glacier face. Most of the time it was extremely cloudy and foggy. The sun was just starting to burn off some clouds shortly after I created this image. I'll try and clean this up and do a re-post.

Roman I'm sorry to say that I didn't have a Grad ND Filter for the whole trip but I've just learned how to do Grad ND adjustment in PS.

[Robert Amoruso]

Stephen,

Great looking image. I tried a different approach. I did a gray point balance on the image (got rid of yellow color cast) and then a Local Contrast Enhancement USM at 30-60-0.

[Stephen Stephen]

Robert thank you for the comment and the re-work. This version looks quite like I remember it. I like it best of the three posted.