I came upon this stone wall on a recent trip to the Blanchard Springs Caverns Recreation Area, which is located in the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest about 2-1/2 hours north-northeast of Little Rock. While stone walls are not uncommon, most of the ones I see are very short or in some state of disrepair. This wall, however, was well cared for and was over 800 feet long. It was that incredible length that I wanted to convey.
The morning I took this, it was extremely foggy. As I was driving, there were areas where I couldn’t see more than 50 to 75 feet in front of me. However, while the fog would provide a sense of depth as the wall seemed to disappear into the white shroud, I also knew that the sky would present a problem as it would appear as a white, featureless expanse that would be very distracting visually and need to be addressed later in Photoshop.
Compositionally and technically, this was an easy photograph to make. I positioned my camera approximately a foot and a half from the wall and, using a small aperture, focused about eight feet into the frame to ensure complete depth of field. I made sure the wall and grass area was properly exposed. I didn’t worry about the sky being overexposed because I knew I would be replacing it.
When I got home, the image was as I had imagined, including the white, featureless sky. I opened my folder of sky photographs and found one that matched the overall lighting and mood of the image. When replacing the sky in a photograph, it is critical that the replacement sky matches the lighting of the picture or it simply won’t look believable. In this instance, the lighting is subdued because of the thick fog, so a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds would not look right.
To replace the sky, I copied and pasted the sky picture onto the photograph of the wall and, in the blend mode drop down menu, selected “Multiply.” This blended the two images into a single photograph. Then, using the brush tool, I removed the portion of the sky that was overlaying the wall and grassy area. Finally, I lightened the sky slightly using the Levels dialog box.
Settings: Canon 5D Mk IV, 32mm, 1/4 sec, f/22
I enjoy long perspective shots down fences, up trees, along the sides of buildings, across the surface of water, etc. Since my camera has a flip-out lcd screen, I like experimenting with strange angles on shots. Occasionally, they turn out to be pretty interesting.
Certainly, one of the benefits of digital photography versus film photography is that you can now experiment all you want without the added expense of getting film developed. It has definitely opened up a whole new world!
Yes. It removes much of the frustration that used to come with photography and allows for on-the-spot camera adjustments.