Spilling Over

Standing in the mountains between storms can be frightening to some. The exiting rain, the coming dark, lightning approaching on the horizon. The mountains reflect our lives in subtle ways, the storms representing strife, conflict, turmoil within our lives, within our minds. No storm lasts forever though, and between the crashing waves of downpours, thunder, and the oppressive weight form above, we have these moments of peace. Moments of true beauty, wonder, sparks of the imagination. With that comes our responsibility to stand firm as the next storm spills over the edge, protect ourselves from the coming storm, and wait, once again for the peace that comes between. The mountains are a reflection of ourselves, one just has to look and see.

This shot was one a friend pointed out to me while I was setting a composition for the sunset. Because I use a specific tripod head, I could note my settings, before turning the camera and capturing this, no real compositional thought here, it was shot on the fly, to capture the moment. While at first I thought the subject might be too narrow, I decided to go ahead and pursue it, and adjusted for the exposure. The difficulty with these shots has always been the edit.

Soft edges can work against you when they occur next to sharp angles like these trees. Then of course the way clouds and fog tend to thin. To combat this I used a fill mask and a luma range to fully capture the clouds, and slowly pushed the mask to blur heavily at the edges. It takes a little time to figure out how to accomplish this, but well worth it. As I said previously, editing in layers is a skill you should absolutely experiment with. It will help you target colors, edges, and contrast more effectively.

Until Next Time!

Aperture: f7.1
ISO: 320
SS: 1/250th
Focal: 46mm

Fujinon 16-55mm