This was shot at the Great Falls over Potomac river in the Washington DC area, running between Virginia and Maryland. And I shot this from the Virginia side.
This is a manual blend of 2 exposures, one shot for the sky and the other one for the land. I brushed out the overexposed and underexposed areas using layer mask, to keep the dynamic range.
I used a neutral density filter and a polarizer filter stacked on my 18 70 mm lens, which pulled 3 stops of the exposure down. This helped to achieve the effect on water.
I used 2 layers with blending option of multiply and screen, to brush out and enhance some highlights and midtones. The rocks and trees were selectively sharpened to enhance the texture.
Thanks again for all the nice words.
Statistics
Place: 3 out of 155 Avg (all users): 7.4314 Avg (commenters): 8.3684 Avg (participants): 7.2874 Avg (non-participants): 7.5385 Views since voting: 11680 Views during voting: 578 Votes: 204 Comments: 46 Favorites: 18 (view)
I'm sorry I failed to acknowledge this after voting, it's an exceptionally nice example of HDRI used faithfully and creatively all at the same time :-)
I grew up in Northern Virginia and have seen many pictures of Great Falls. I think I even have one in my portfolio. But this is by far the best I've ever seen. Congratulations on a job well done and a well-earned ribbon.
I guessed this was probably yours because it's one of your favoured locations. Congrats on the ribbon. All 3 ribbon winners have a new PB - now let's see how hard it is to beat these scores!
Cool subject. Maybe too much silk water blur. The sky is not an attribute. I think you would have benefitted from some dynamic light in the scene, like shows up a little bit in the rocks upper right. Otherwise, the image seems underexposed overall.
A definite contender for a ribbon. I bumped this up from an 8 which O gave during my voting phase, to a 9. Image is sharp and composition is great... colour and contrast is just an iota flat IMO. That said, this is a brilliant photo... well done.
I may be wrong, but I don't see the point of using HDR for this. The scene seems to have low dynamic range, so this may as well have been a "normal" capture. That said, this is still my highest rated image of the challenge - it is simply a stunning photo.
I go on forever....
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