- PHOTOGRAPHING THE WORLD 1: LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY AND POST PROCESSING WITH ELIA LOCARDI FREE ISO
- PHOTOGRAPHING THE WORLD 1: LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY AND POST PROCESSING WITH ELIA LOCARDI FREE PROFESSIONAL
Then we have nice looking lights on the buildings together with a rather interesting sky. Now we want to blend both images so that the artificial lights from the second RAW are brought into the first RAW image.
PHOTOGRAPHING THE WORLD 1: LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY AND POST PROCESSING WITH ELIA LOCARDI FREE ISO
ISO 100 - \(f\)/8 - 0.4s - The cropped and balanced second base RAW image. Note that the sky is not that colourful and interesting as before. The camera did not move in the entire process! This is the cropped and balanced resulting RAW image. As I know the location, I knew that after a while no more lights would come on, so I did not wait for the blue hour.
Some time later it becomes darker at the Graslei and more lights come on, of which I also take some pictures. ISO 100 - \(f\)/8 - 1/5 - The cropped and balanced base RAW image. My resulting balanced RAW is shown below. On the sides of the picture there are some annoying elements, so I slightly crop the image. Above that, Capture One 9 (my RAW processor) does an amazing job at recovering shadows, which is a process people used to avoid as much as possible, but is not much of an issue anymore with the current camera sensors and RAW processors. The image above is quite underexposed for the subject, but I do not have any blown out sky in which there is still a lot of detail and colour. The lens I use is the amazing Sigma 17-50mm (f)/2.8 with image stabilization. That way I can enable exposure bracketing I shoot three exposure brackets, and the picture above is the +0EV image. I shoot with my EOS1100D in RAW and AV mode. Maybe it is a good time to point to my camera settings. This is the base sunset shot I picked (unedited). Still, the colours in the sky were quite beautiful, and after shooting for a while some clouds returned. I really have to come earlier to scout the location, pick my favourite spot and set up the camera. The sun had already gone below the horizon and the clouds were mostly gone.
However, I came too late to the spot I picked out. And there were some clouds, so this could be the perfect shot. The colours in the sky were really amazing: a mix of oranges, reds and purples. I waited a long time for the perfect evening (it has been overcast and raining a lot these days), and finally it came. The famous 'Graslei' in Ghent, image courtesy Marco Günther (Flickr). Below is a blue hour picture of the Graslei I found on Flickr. For this project I decided to take a picture of the famous ‘Graslei’, which in the summer is the hotspot for tourists and the operating base of many boating companies. The city centre - although many landmarks are fake or rebuilt - is very photogenic as it is home to a lot of medieval houses, churches, towers, canals and castles. The city of Ghent in Belgium is my current home base, and it is the ideal spot to try out new photographic techniques. Inspired by his pictures and his moment blending style, I decided to give it a try myself. Really, go and check his photos out and you will see what I mean. For example, he takes pictures all the way from the golden hour, through sunset and blue hour, and afterwards he combines the most dramatic sky of the sunset with artificial lights that have come on during the blue hour. In short, he takes multiple of pictures of his subject as time progresses and then he blends the best aspects of these pictures into one blend. He also developed a technique called ‘blending moments in time’. His landscapes are so vivid and spectacular and the colours in his photos really pop out. His point of focus is to photograph famous landmarks in the world in such a way that no-one has seen it before.
PHOTOGRAPHING THE WORLD 1: LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY AND POST PROCESSING WITH ELIA LOCARDI FREE PROFESSIONAL
He is a professional landscape and cityscape photographer who has inspired me ever since I have gotten interested in photography. For those who do not know Elia Locardi, go check him out on 500px.