Sunday, May 24, 2009

365 Theme 127: Grass, Turf, Lawn


Well, it's definitely not "turf" or "lawn". But it is definitely grass. This is another shot taken at Duke Farms, this of just part of what is one of if not the largest remaining grassland in New Jersey. It was a very hazy day, with fog and overcast skies, which explains the all white sky and the washed out tree line. 

3 comments:

terricreates said...

Normally when you get a shot like that do you attempt to correct anything? I try and correct through photoshop but was wondering if there is something to do with the camera. I like the way your shot is balanced, so its definitely not just grass, its interesting, cause it makes me wonder where the snakes might be hiding. And all I have seen of Jersey is city, like Pequanock and Paterson. Glad to see there is more.

Anonymous said...

I like the composition with the large tree peeking in from the side. I think the haze adds to the shot in that it's very real.

MevetS said...

@ top5cats: If you look at the pictures in my Sunday Six for May 17th, ( http://recycledphotons.blogspot.com/2009/05/sunday-six-may-17th-citizen-scientists.html ), you'll see a similar sky in the background. This sky really was featureless fog and cloud, so there was no detail to pull out of it.

As the main purpose of the trip that resulted in these images was birding, I had a long lens on a tripod. I wasn't planning to do landscape shots. Had I been thinking landscape I would have taken my split neutral density filter with me, to dim the sky. But like I said, there really wasn't any detail in the sky to capture. Using a split neutral density filter is an excellent way to manipulate the light at capture time.

In post processing in Photoshop I'll use the Shadow/Highlight tool to pull detail out of the too bright areas of an image. I did that with the sky in the Cranberry Bog image in my Sunday Six for May 10th ( http://recycledphotons.blogspot.com/2009/05/sunday-six-may-10th-golden-heather-i.html ).

In Camera Raw you can use the Recovery tool as well, but it works on the entire image, while in Photoshop you can select the area you want to work on.

Another method is to take two shots, exposing one for the highlights and one for the shadows, and combine them in Photoshop. Or take one shot and process it twice; to best do this be sure to shoot in raw.

NJ isn't known as the Garden State for nothing. :-)

@ klsbear: Thanks. I took several different compositions of this scene. And the one with the tree on the side was the only one I really liked. And now that you mention it the haze does add a little depth to the image.