My Magnum Opus

I hope I have to keep adding My Magnum Opus v2.0 to various posts following this one as I venture down this road of trying to create the perfect landscape photo.

I love this photo for so many reasons, but the one I keep thinking back on is the feeling of my reaction to seeing it in camera for the first time. If you’re not into photography at all, I’ll fill you in on a little something. What you see is sometimes not even remotely what the image looked like right after they were captured. Colors are brought out. A commonly used technique is to intentionally underexpose a photo on purpose and bring everything out in post. (We call it exposing for the highlights.) And that’s ok. This is art. It’s subjective. People who love Pablo Picasso may not enjoy Georges Seurat. I fit into that group. The banner photo above this post came out almost like you see it here. That’s why when I saw it, I was thrilled - I told my buddy Jake who was with me on the three week road trip to the west coast, “Dude, you gotta check this out.” I knew I had nailed it. It’s only mildly edited. Moments before the 30s exposure, the full moon rose over the southeastern edge of the caldera at Crater Lake National Park. It naturally illuminated the mountains for me. The edits I made to it consisted only of upping the exposure slightly which brought out more stars in the night sky, giving me a better separation between the mountains and the lake, and using a radial brush to lighten the mountains some more, giving the photo a definite subject.