Sunsets and sunrises provide endless variety. The same physical location will always yield a different cloud formation, and the shades of the colors seem to change by the second.  Exposure remains difficult where there are dark aspects, whether by clouds or foreground. We also don’t want to spend time making adjustments and risk losing the best of several sequential shots.  Fortunately, we have the ability in post-processing to address this issue. The tension is between retaining the reality of the vision while bringing out the inherent color that we don’t see in the original exposure.
 
Take this example. This is the as shot image of sunset off Montego Bay, Jamaica.

There is little contrast here and the image is flat.  We can see hints of red in the lower clouds and some yellow and red on the horizon.  Compositionally, while the sand and small structure are darker, I liked the lone figure at the far right to add a sense of proportion and more meditative aspect to the image.
 
I used Lightroom to make basic adjustments to set white and black points to increase the contrast, clarity and vibrancy. More importantly, I worked the luminosity and saturation filters of the color controls. While increasing luminosity brightens an image’s color, decreasing it thickens the color, and when combined with saturation, makes more visible what is already there. You can then readjust vibrancy if it starts to look artificial. In these situations, subtlety is important, but you also want the image to pop. You also generally don’t want to make it artificial. You can work with shadow filters to bring back some of the detail in otherwise dark areas. Here is what I ended up with:

This brought out the yellows in the clouds above and to the right.  Maybe I could reduce the saturation and increase the luminosity of the orange more, and render it more subtle, but this brought out the reflection in the water.  I made very slight adjustments using split toning.  It is always good to compare the original to what you are doing as a reality check.  I used the sharpening and luminosity sliders and masking in Lightroom, and finished off with the high pass sharpening for more subtle adjustments.
 
I am a firm believer that less is more, and care always needs to be taken to not overdo it, lest you turn your “wow” picture into a cartoon.  Unless, of course, that is the effect you want.

Based on feedback, for 2018 I will concentrate this blog on more practical aspects of photography. For this first blog of the new year, I address one of the old chestnuts of photography:  Don’t take the first shot that presents itself.

We hear this all the time in photography clubs and in instructional books.  Move around.  Get various viewpoints.  Wait until the decisive moment appears.

It is true that we may take 1000 pictures and end up with only three or four that are truly memorable and evocative—the wow shots. It is also true that where the opportunity presents itself, it does pay to move around the subject; perhaps wait to see if certain people move away or the sun breaks through.  Any number of factors impact on the ultimate image.  However, the advantage of digital photography is such that there is no impediment to taking that first shot.

We often round a corner, take a curve in the road, or arrive at a lookout point, and we are struck immediately with a view.  I like to take that picture because it captures immediately what I saw and what was—in that moment—the wow image.  I then move around, look for a better angle, perhaps one that avoids an obstructive element I now notice.  Maybe I won’t use that first image.

But I have also experienced situations where, having hesitated to wait or look for the better shot, I have lost it entirely.  The person whose face was filled with character has now seen me, and the expression is gone.  The clear view is now gone because a truck has parked in front of the interesting building.  The sun vanishes behind a cloud.  And so forth.

Take the first shot.  It may be the only one you get.  While I generally agree with the conventional wisdom that you should get the image as well as you can in the camera, the reality is that there is much that can be done in the processing of an image—particularly and most simply in cropping and straightening.

Here’s an example.  The first shot is made just after I emerged from the arch leading to Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square) in Lisbon, Portugal.

 
It is unprocessed here.  I may not have snapped the instant I went through the arch, but instead gathered my bearings, absorbed, and then shot.  It is facing the ocean, but we do not really see the ocean.  It has people in a random position that do not add anything to the image.  It is asymmetrical, with part of a building on the right but not showing the comparable building on the left.  It does show (and reminds me) of the impression of the vast, bright, clean nature of the square.  It is like a diary entry.  I could do things with this (e.g., straighten it, and crop it so the “v” is more symmetrical).  It is not necessarily a bad image, but it may not be the best.  Nonetheless, I have it.  And maybe on reflection I like the people in the foreground I’ve captured, who would not have been there had I hesitated.

It is a large square, and I spent time shooting it towards the ocean and back towards the city, focusing on this side and that side, on details and the broader picture.  I went up to the observation area on top of the arch, and of all the pictures, found this one preferable to present what initially impressed me about the square.

I think this is a better image.  But I’m still glad to have that first shot so it did not join the list we all have of the ones that got away because we hesitated.