Practical Photography

This image
has all of the
elements
needed to
create a great
landscape
Deepdale
by Steve Whitaker
When I walked down this
valley from St Sunday
Crag in the Lake District
a couple of years ago, I
knew it had photographic
potential. For this return
visit, I arrived at sunrise to capture the
moving water. To do this I set my
camera up on a tripod and used a long
shutter speed. The sun bathed the
north-facing crags and some of these
golden tones were reflected in the river.
stevewhitakerphotography.co.uk
Dan says: What a remarkable slice of
countryside! The fluffy clouds, lush
green valley, snow-capped mountains
and rushing stream give this photo all
of the elements required for a great
landscape. The temptation would be to
turn this landscape to mono, but I’m glad
Steve kept the warm and gentle tones
intact as they work fantastically well.
While the light from the sunrise has
hit the peak in the distance, the valley
floor is still in shade, so the bottom half
of the pic is much darker. This could
have been remedied by using graduated
ND filters at the time, but is also a
simple fix in Photoshop (see panel).
A shutter speed of 0.6sec was used
to capture a rush of movement in the
water. The cascading water on the rocks
mid-stream looks like mini waterfalls.
Having these larger in the frame could
make the foreground interest stronger.
You could physically get closer with a good
set of wellies and a sturdy tripod (only
traverse shallow areas of the stream),
but if you don’t want to risk your camera
gear getting wet, use a longer lens such as
a 35mm to zoom in, which would make
the rocks appear larger in the frame.
This is a beautiful corner of the country
and Steve’s commitment to get up early
and shoot the sunrise has paid off.
Nikon D800 | 20mm | f/11 | 0.6sec | ISO 100
Selectively brighten with Levels
It’s not uncommon for areas
of a photograph to look too
dark or bright, but it’s easy to
fix in Photoshop. Click on the
Create new fill or adjustment
layer icon and choose Levels
from the list that appears.
There are three sliders under
the Levels histogram. Drag
the middle Midtones and
right Highlights sliders
towards the left a little to
brighten the whole picture.
When you’re done, hit Ctrl+I
to turn the Layer Mask totally
black, then use a soft white
Brush Tool to paint over your
foreground to lighten it.
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