Misty hills of Big Sur

Mists in Big Sur

This picture was taken at Big Sur during my vacation trip there with my wife and my in-laws. The picture conveys a mysterious mood, a tranquil scene that hides more than it shows — in a way similar to the enticement of a good belly dance or strip show. The very things we do not see invite is into the picture, draws our attention in, and to the clues that we are given. It wouldn't seem, not to me at least, however, to be a particularly open-ended picture. The mystique and tranquility are reasonably obvious readings of rolling mist-covered hills such as these — it is not necessarily a picture that brings a viewer something new every time they revisit it as much as it is a sure-fire way of retrieving these calm, tranquil feelings it evokes. As for how the tranquility comes about, my feeling is that it is connected to several aspects of the image. First of all, there is not much movement in the picture itself. The picture depicts a pair of hills, not about to move any time soon. But then the hills themselves are shrouded in the mists, are almost hidden away themselves in a soft, rolling gradient of blue tones. All in all, there is very little conflict in the picture — slowly rolling gradients of blue that end in pleasant countryside silhouettes, and what slopes there are, are gentle and tapering off. Nothing that sends the eye off with any speed, and nothing in the picture itself that moves particularly much.

[CA Roadtrip] A sky on fire

[CA Roadtrip] A sliver of blue

[CA Roadtrip] The problem with HDR…

…is sometimes I just can get it to look just right. Here's what'd be a gorgeous use case for the technique: a sunset. Shot into the sun that just barely hides behind a cloud. In front of us, red plants on the ground. A -2.0/0.0/+2.0 exposure bracket certainly gets us everything we need in terms of pixels.

But a straight up and down HDR can't quite distinguish between the darkness of the plants, and the darkness of the darker bits of sky, so we can't quite get the balance right. Gradiented filters just look awkward. So it is in with the mask we go!

A first attempt, I mask with exposure modification while still in Photoshop with 32 bit, before I even flatten the image down from the full on HDR master:

but it doesn't really look good. Possibly because of me being still too clumsy with the masking brush, possibly some other reason, but it doesn't come out quite the way I had hoped.

Second attempt, just layer the +2 and the -2 exposures, and mask in the flowers from the lighter onto the sky and ocean of the darker one.

If anything, I'd feel this looks worse. But then, I'm not sure. Maybe this could've been saved with better brushing in Photoshop. Maybe you all really like this and I'm just being my usual obnoxiously perfectionist self.

I honestly don't know.

[CA Roadtrip] As the fog settles and the sun sets…

…everything takes on a reddish hue…

[CA Roadtrip] Sunset over Big Sur

[CA Roadtrip] Lux dei ad lucem hominis

The Piedras Blancas lighthouse outside San Simeon as the sun starts to set.

Big sur in the evening fog

A somewhat different perspective from yesterday. As magically and fairy-tale-like as before.

Big sur in the evening fog

A vision from a fairy tale, these rolling hills creeping up under the fog blanket they're hiding under.