Yellowstone National Park just looks so good in HDR (high dynamic range) that it merited another entry! Be sure to click on the photos to see every detail in the larger versions.
Yellowstone National Park is a beautiful place – hardly anyone would ever argue differently. But from a photographer’s perspective, those magical clouds of sulfuric steam that create such a surreal atmosphere to park visitors can be anything but magical when trying to capture the spirit of the park accurately. Who wants to look at flat, lifeless photos of a gray haze with a few semi-obscured trees peeking out? Enter HDR processing, cutting through the steam to reveal the true landscape of Yellowstone and make those bright colors come back to life. None of the following shots are “true” HDRs, meaning each photo was a single exposure toned in Photoshop rather than combined multiple exposures, but I hope you’ll enjoy the collection nonetheless (click on the images for larger versions!).
Steam rises against a stormy backdrop at Grand Prismatic Spring
Ready for a new installment in beyond-the-average-exposure photos? Today’s the day! (To learn more about HDR and how you can try it yourself, check out Digital Photography School’s three-part series on how to get started. They also have beautiful examples of HDR done right if you’re in need of further inspiration.)
Montana's Mission Mountains
It may have been a while, but remember “Project New Zealand”? (No? If not, you can catch up on the story of why New Zealand is a project at the original blog entry.) Back in October, I brought you a collection of restored NZ photos with a specific Lord of the Rings theme and promised part II at a later date. Today is that later date. Enjoy!
The view from Mount Sunday, a rocky hill in the South Island's Rangitata Valley used to portray Edoras in the Lord of the Rings movies
If you’ve bee following this blog for a while, you might be familiar with what I’ve been calling “Project New Zealand.” If you’re a newer visitor, the project is, in short, my ongoing work to restore pictures from my semester abroad two years ago, photos I took with the only camera I had at the time: a low-grade little point-and-shoot that didn’t do New Zealand justice by far. Ever since I started the project, I’ve been intending to go just a little geek and have a “Lord of the Rings edition” of Project New Zealand, devoted to photos of New Zealand locations used in Peter Jackson’s trilogy. And I finally got around to it. There will certainly be a part II soon, so keep an eye out for it!
The North Island's Mount Ngauruhoe, a volcano in Tongariro National Park used as inspiration for Mount Doom
