I love participating in photo challenges! It gives me a chance to reflect on my work and look past the subject and see the art. Rock the Shot always offers amazing challenges and I always love seeing the variety of submissions! My favorite of 2013 came at the very end of the year. It is from my beautiful friend Valerie’s maternity session.
We started planning her session months ago. She had her sister custom make this dress. We jumped in the car and headed out to the countryside in Oklahoma. This shot was taken at the very end of her session. The sun had set five minutes before. We were actually walking back to the car when I said, “Wait just a minute. Let me grab my 24-70 for something a little more dramatic.” I knew the sky was perfect for a wide angle! To get the sky and my subject exposed right I took two shots and did a composite. For the first shot I exposed for her skin which blew out the sky. For the second shot I exposed for the sky which made my subject extremely dark. I put the exposed skin picture on top of the exposed sky picture. I then used a layer mask to mask off the blown out sky to reveal the exposed sky underneath.
I then did a basic edit by hand in Photoshop with some soft light layers and clipping masks. Clipping masks allowed me to do a dramatic edit to the sky without over doing the rest of the image.
Some facts about the image:
Camera: Nikon Df
Lens: Nikon 24-70 2.8
Lighting: Five minutes after sunset
Post Processing: Photoshop CS5
Settings: 24mm f/2.8 ss 1/500 ISO 200.
If you love photography I HIGHLY recommend visiting the rock the shot forum!
www.rocktheshotforum.com
Or click on the button below to take you right to the site!
