I was inspired by my post yesterday on white balance to continue editing images from my time at the Skelton Coast in Namibia. Given the flat light in a lot of the images, I thought black and white edits might be a good option. I am quite happy the way the turned out.
All of the images from my time at the coast were shot with my Panasonic FZ1000, which I have mentioned before is a great and capable camera, but sometimes the quality is a bit lacking when comparing to the files I got out of my Nikon or that I now get from my Fuji. But these were shot at the start of a long trip and I thought it would be wise not to subject the Nikon to blowing sand, given its terrible habit of picking up dust particles. So, I’ve done the best with what I got that day.
Ripples in a sand dune leading down to the ocean. All images April, 2017 during a trip to the coast from the Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp.A group of seals perched on a rock. The seal colony had a smell that was out of this world (and not in a good way). We were all grateful our vehicle had windows, and we kept them closed as much as possible.No image I took did justice to the number of seals in the water. At least here one is jumping, so you know what all the other little black specs in the water are!A lone seagull on the fringes of the seal colony. We had hoped we might see a brown hyena during our visit, but only saw remnants of their visits littered along the shoreline; they seemed spoiled for choice with all the baby seals.
I recently watched a Luminar editing tutorial discussing technically correct vs creative white balance. Since I am almost always shooting outside, in changing light conditions, I don’t have a shots with a grey card in it to actually come up with the technically correct white balance. I tend to leave my camera on auto WB, and then adjust it as needed in post processing. But the tutorial still got me thinking about the different mood and feel that an image can have, depending on the choice of colour temperature.
I decided to play around with this concept a bit with a few images that I took on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia. We took a short flight from camp to the coast and took a drive through the dunes, where it was warm and sunny with clear blue skies, but once we were at the coast line, low cloud and fog swirled around in strong winds, causing subtle, but rapidly changing light conditions as we visited a seal colony, explored a few of the wrecks along the coast, and enjoyed a picnic lunch on the beach.
On a previous trip I had flown over a portion of the Skeleton Coast, and found the abandoned buildings and shipwrecks fascinating to see, so having the change to see some of the wrecks up close was really interesting for me. The different colours and textures of the rusted, twisted metal against the natural sand, rock and water provided lots of options for photos.
A portion of wrecked boat on the Skeleton Coast. Here I chose to play up the blue of the background water and intensify the textures in the rusted metal. I feel the cooler tone of this image intensifies the feeling of desolation I get from this image.Taking things in a different direction, this image is much warmer, as well as a bit faded and matte. Combined with the subject, I think it lends a sense of age to the image. You begin to wonder just how long this boat has been breaking apart on the coast.This image would be closest to a technically correct white balance, though given the changing light conditions, all of the images are representative of how the area actually looked at different moments throughout the day. I thought this small piece of metal looked a bit like the blade portion of a ice skate.
Like last year, Northern BC has been hit hard with wildfires. It’s actually pretty scary looking at the wildfire maps, as it looks like most of the province is currently on fire. Thankfully, there is currently no danger in our immediate vicinity, other than extremely poor air quality from the substantial amount of smoke that has settled in the region, and the airborne ash that lately has been coating my car every night.
Yesterday morning started out normal enough for the past few weeks, a bit smoky but nothing too terrible. But then as the morning wore on, it got darker rather than brighter, and at 9:10am it looked like we were in the midst of some type of solar eclipse event. I went outside to try and capture a few images; it was extremely smoky, cold like it would be in the middle of the night, and all the photo sensitive lights had come on. It was spooky quiet as all the birds had dropped to complete silence.
By 10am the darkness had passed but it remained incredibly smoky throughout the day.
I was in the middle of work so I didn’t have the opportunity to drive anywhere more interesting to take pictures; this is a view down my driveway to the road… not that you can really even see the driveway in the image. It was just the sky I was focused on.
This shot was taken on my Fuji camera with the 18-55 lens, shot at f2.8, ISO 2000 and 1/60 sec. I created the merged panorama in On1 Photo Raw, and for efficiency edited it in On1 (back to the Luminar processing tomorrow). The merged panorama was a bit of a challenge because the images were so dark. I had to up the exposure slider on all the individual images, and then reverse that on the panorama. My camera is basically always set to auto white balance, and I changed it in editing to daylight, and that got the sky to be true to life.
Just to give some perspective, sunrise this week is around 5:55am.
A merged panorama of 5 images shot at 9:18am yesterday morning. A single shot definitely captured the spookiness of the colour of the sky, but having the panorama really shows the variation in different areas of the sky.
All of us here are praying for the safety of all the incredibly brave people working to put these fires out, and hoping that some favourable weather will be heading their way soon.
I was inspired this week to explore images from Namibia with my painterly effects project for the month. In the brief time I have spent there, I have found it to be a magical place. The light is beautiful and the landscapes are at times surreal. From the air, the vast open spaces seem lifeless, but on the ground, it is a completely different story.
I hope you enjoy my selections for the week.
A group of oryx walking in front of one of the impressive dunes in Sossusvlei.A lone elephant moves through the desert, looking to catch up to her herd that had already reached the river.Sunset over the desert in Hoanib.A group of flamingos in flight over the Skeleton Coast.The land of vast deserts sometimes surprises with lush greenery. This lion was lounging in the cool grass with the rest of his pride nearby.Large groups of seals awaited us when we visited the Skeleton Coast from Hoanib Camp. Inland it was a clear, blue sky day, but on the coast, fog and mist obscured the view.A group of lions, newly evicted from their pride, roaming through Etosha National Park.In Damaraland, you can easily feel like you are the only people for miles around.
I’ve had a great time over the past 10 days reviewing all of my video clips from my time in Kenya and putting together some highlights as the last instalment of my wide angles only project. With the exception of the lion cub video clip, which was shot on a Panasonic FX1000, all clips were done on the Gopro, and I edited and built the video using the free Gopro studio software.
If you missed the video from Uganda, you can find that here.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead. It’s time for me to ponder what my topic will be for May.
The photo challenge topic for the week is lines (not the kind you were stuck writing in school if you were misbehaving in class…)
Here are a few images that I found that I feel have a strong linear element to them. I hope you enjoy.
A game trail through the desert leads up a hill and around a bend. Don’t you find yourself wondering what might be just beyond the line of sight? Namibia, April 2017.Jagged hills zigzagging into the distance in this aerial shot above the Damaraland region of Namibia. April, 2017.Game trails through the desert again, but this time leading us to a lioness heading towards the river for a drink. Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp, April 2017.A road through the Nxai Pan leading to the Baines Baobabs. The image is deceiving, as the tree trunks are as wide as a vehicle. Botswana, May 2017.I took this image of the sky while on a sundowner drinks stop; I was drawn to the way the setting sun was illuminating the linear clouds. South Africa, May 2017.
