Timing is Everything

At twilight, just a few minutes can make a major difference in the image that you can capture. The image above was taken on October 5th, the night following a full moon. I knew from checking the US Naval Observatory’s website that I would be able to capture the moon next to the Lincoln Memorial while shooting from the walkway on the Arlington Memorial Bridge. The image above was taken about 3 minutes after the “official” moonrise time provided by the USNO, but it was blocked from my view by the trees next to the Memorial. Although the twilight blue of the sky (about 30 minutes after sunset) was starting to darken, there was still sufficient ambient light to illuminate the side of the bridge and the Potomac River below. I chose a longer time exposure to trace the tracks of automobile lights on the bridge and the road along the riverbank below.

The second image was taken only 10 minutes later when the moon had almost cleared the trees, but the sky was now darkened and there was no ambient light to illuminate the side of the bridge or the river below. I moved my shooting location to the middle of the sidewalk so the right half of the image would not be a completely black void. The result is acceptable, but it would have been better had the moon shown up ten minutes sooner.

The question naturally arises about the possibilities for a better image on the previous night, when the moon was full and would have been above those trees sooner. Unfortunately, on that night, the moon would have been too far to the right of the Lincoln Memorial to be included in the frame.

The next full moon will be on November 3rd and from this position on Memorial Bridge it will be much closer to the Lincoln Memorial than it was on October 5th. In fact, it may well be obscured by the Memorial for a few minutes. Nevertheless, the timing of the sunset and moonrise indicates that there will be a better possibility of capturing the full moon in the picture before the twilight period fades.

Technical data for these images: Both images captured with a Nikon D-200 and an 18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens and the ISO at 200. The first image was shot with the lens extended to 82 mm. The exposure was set at f/20 for 5 seconds. The second image was shot with the lens extended to 132 mm. The exposure was set at f/18 for 1.5 seconds. Both images were adjusted in Camera Raw and Photoshop.

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From One, Many

I find it is occasionally a good idea to go back and look at images you haven’t seen in a while. Often as not, a new idea may occur to you about how it might be interpreted. For example, the above photograph was taken about a year ago when I visited the gardens of Versailles, about an hour away from Paris. (Tip: If you go there, check to see if you can time your visit to coincide with a scheduled fountain display.)

The original was captured in film (Ektachrome 100VS). After the film from the week-long trip to Paris was processed, I didn’t see anything in the fountain series that stood out. But this week, I went back and looked over the slides again and I saw some new ways this one shot could be presented.

The image above is the full frame of the shot and was scanned on a Nikon ED-8000 film scanner and then processed in Photoshop CS3. The original scan, as a 16-bit TIFF file was the starting point for all four of the images shown here. The first image was processed using a very modest curves adjustment layer, a medium boost to the blue and yellow colors using a hue/saturation adjustment layer, and sharpening with the Unsharp Mask.

The next image involved only a crop of the original image, but the result is something quite different. The viewer no longer sees a large fountain, but might imagine a story of a female figure struggling up a waterfall.

The third image is an even tighter crop, followed by a conversion to grayscale using the Channel Mixer adjustment layer. The contrast was enhanced, with a more aggressive use of the curves adjustment layer than the original color image.

The fourth image started with the cropped color image, and I introduced one of the many filters available in Photoshop. The command sequence for this one was Filter > Artistic > Plastic Bubble. If you want to experiment with these special effects, be aware that the final result can vary considerably depending on the size at which the final result will be viewed. There is a control in the lower left corner of the filter dialog box that enables you to reduce the size on the monitor from the default 100 percent. Be sure to play around with the sliders in the upper right portion of the dialog box; their names vary depending on which filter is being used.

Finally, I opened the original scan (a TIFF file) with Camera Raw, a somewhat unorthodox procedure since the Adobe Raw tool is designed for digital photographs originally exposed in the Raw format. I made adjustments in the exposure, fill light, clarity, vibrance, saturation and curves tools. I then opened it in Photoshop, and used only the Unsharp Mask to sharpen the image.

I don’t know that any of these versions would be considered outstanding, but the point here is that you have many tools available. Just spending some time using them will enhance your skills for the times when you do get a great image.

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