Roadtrip Images

Every once in a while the light is so incredible that the image almost makes itself. This was one of those times.

Frankfort, MI is in the northwest part of the lower peninsula and on the shores of Lake Michigan. It’s about 20 miles south of where I shot the thunderstorm over Lake Michigan a while back. You can see that post here. We happened to be in town in late afternoon and the skies started to open up after a storm front had passed through the area. We decided to head down to the lakefront for sunset and see if something interesting would develop. Clearing storms can be wonderful times for photography. The skies are usually pretty dramatic and if the clearing coincides with sunset it can be magical. The north pier in Frankfort makes an interesting leading line out into the lake and draws the eye to the lighthouse at the end of the pier. As I was setting up my gear, it became pretty clear we were in for a show. The sun was setting into a clear horizon but we had awesome clouds to the south. I was hoping that they would light up once the sun went over the horizon and they sure did.  What an inspiring sky. This is the kind of light landscape photographers search for.

The image above is a blend of two images. One for the sky and another for the water. The two images were made just seconds apart so no fake sky replacement going on here. What I wanted was a relatively sharp image of the sky but I also wanted to smooth out the wave action in the water. In order to smooth out the water it required a long exposure, 6 seconds in this case. To get that long exposure I added a 6 stop neutral density filter to the lens. Only problem is the clouds move a lot in 6 seconds. As you can see below, the clouds are pretty blurred in the long exposure image. I also lightened up the entire image to bring out the detail in the pier and the subtle colors in the water. I didn’t care about the sky being over exposed since it would be replaced.

For the image of the sky, I used a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second with a low ISO of 31. In hindsight, I could of used a bit faster shutter speed because there is still a small amount of movement in the clouds. As you can see in the image below, I adjusted the exposure for the sky and didn’t worry about the pier and water since that would be replaced from the image above.

Both of these images are close to straight out of the camera and are shot in RAW format. The sky isn’t over cooked in Photoshop like so many images you see online. It was just an incredible light show. Blending the two images in Photoshop requires some masking but it’s not difficult. You can also see people on the pier in both images and I removed those in Photoshop as well. After blending the two images into one, I used the Nik Collections plugin Color Efex Pro 4.0 to add some dynamic and color contrast to the image. Not much but enough to bring out some of the dramatic light in the sky that we enjoyed that evening. A little dodging and burning to balance the light across the image and you have what’s shown at the beginning of this post.

I strongly believe that landscape images should be authentic and believable. It’s probably a carry over from a couple decades of shooting film. I think it still holds true with digital however despite how easy it is to manipulate an image with Photoshop. I want my images to represent what was actually there at the moment. The hard part with landscape photography is being there at the right moment. But when you are and nature gives you a light show like it did on this evening, it’s way better than anything you can create in Photoshop.

Nikon D810, 16-35mm @ 35mm. Image one f/5.6 @ 6 seconds w/6 stop ND filter. Image two f/5.6 @1/15 second.