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Real Artists Ship Photography Blog By Neal Grosskopf

Software: Lightroom

Neal Grosskopf

Brunette Park – Keweenaw Peninsula, Upper Michigan

Before & After

Here’s a shot I took last August (2019) up in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan at a small park on Lake Superior called Brunette Park. One of my main purposes of this trip was to take night sky photos as it’s a very dark location. I ended up spending two nights out until 2-3am shooting the stars and it was a blast!

Location

As I mentioned before, Brunette Park is located in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan. There’s a road that travels along Lake Superior for a long ways and there’s several small parks you can stop at and enjoy the view. Brunette Park is one of the larger parks up there and faces almost directly south. Many of the other parks are at an angle so they may not work as well for Milky Way photos.

One of my nights at the park there were quite a few people there also looking at the stars. Another large group started a fire in a fire pit, but left at about 11pm. Something to consider if you also visit the park as there may be others there who could get in your photo. The shot here was from my second night at the park where I pretty much had it to myself. The only downside that night was there was some clouds coming in which you can see in my photo.

Composition

I will admit, I’m not original in the composition you see in this post. I had seen it somewhere else online during my scouting and decided to shoot it myself. The shot it taken near the fire pit so if there’s others at the park using it, you won’t be able to take it as they’ll be in your way or the smoke will obscure your view.

This is a good time to call out that it’s very important that you spend some time scouting a location online prior to visiting it, especially if it’s 7 hours away like this was. For instance a lot of the parks up here had trees that would be in way of the Milky Way. A lot of times online, you can find 360 views of parks on Google Maps which helps with determining the spatial layout of a place. I also recommend stopping at places during the day and using Photopills to virtually see where the Milky Way will be later which I did at several of the parks along Lake Superior during the day.

Once I had my composition, I took five images using my Sigma 14mm lens at f1.8. I had accidentally left my camera in crop-mode the entire vacation so this technically is a 21mm shot, doh! I had my Skyguider Pro with me as well, but didn’t use it for this shot as the clouds were rolling in pretty quick and it usually takes me a long time to setup. Also the Milky Way was moving across the sky and by the time I would have had it setup, it probably would have been behind the tree already.

EXIF Information

    Post Processing

    I worked on this photo on and off over the course of 4-5 months. Since having a kid, I haven’t had as much time to both take and post-process photos anymore. The post-processing part is especially difficult as I usually need 4-5 solid hours to edit a Milky Way photo as it involves a lot of masking and small tweaks.

    For this shot, I used Sequator to stack the 5 exposures. Then I imported it to Lightroom and sent it to Photoshop. In Photoshop I made my typical pixel-level edits first like removing star colors, adding an orton effect and star minimization. After that I started creating masks and setup my adjustment layers with levels, curves, white balance etc.

    Software Used

    Lightroom
    Photoshop
    Raya Pro
    Sequator

    Techniques Used

    Exposure Stacking

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    Neal Grosskopf

    Au Train Falls, Upper Michigan

    Before & After

    This particular shot is one of my favorites I’ve ever taken mostly because of the way the processing of it turned out (I feel it looks most like the photographer’s photos who I admire), but I also think I got the angle/composition of it pretty good.

    Location

    Taken at Au Train Falls in Upper Michigan which are only a short drive from Munising, MI. I was staying up here for a fall colors trip and on my way home stopped at Au Train Falls. The falls have a dam behind them that regulates the amount of water that will be going over the falls so it may vary depending on the time of the year. To access them you pull off on to a gravel and drive a short distance down a hill. It isn’t necessarily a park but you are allowed to visit them. I would recommend bring some rubber boots along if you visit as it opens up the possibilities for different angles of shots you can get if you’re able to walk around in the shallow water.

    Composition

    When I arrived there were a few other people walking around near the falls. Since I had my rubber boots with me, I headed into the shallow water and scouted out compositions. The sun was starting to get low in the sky so I had to find angles where the sun didn’t create too much of a reflection in the water. I had my circular polarizer with me to deal with that as well. The cool thing about Au Train Falls is they are these very long and wide falls and if you moved 5 feet in any direction it totally changes the photo. There’s so many great photos to get here. It’s really one of the most photogenic waterfalls I’ve shot at and I will post a few more photos from the trip here later.

    I took this shot towards the end of my shoot as it was one of the few angles left that the sun wasn’t overpowering. I got down real low and put a couple leaves in front of my lens for a foreground element. Then I turned my camera at an angle to lead the water into the frame. Then, I took 3 bracketed shots at -2ev, 0ev & +2ev. I also took another set like this with the focus set on the foreground so I could focus stack it later.

    EXIF Information

      Post Processing

      As you can see in the before and after, this photo is heavily post-processed. It’s been awhile since I last processed it, but I believe I started in Lightroom, then exported for Aurora HDR. After that brought it back to Lightroom and sent it to Photoshop where I did most of the edits. Then, I wrapped it up in Luminar. I also used Raya Pro to add an orton effect. One of the few things I use Raya Pro for now.

      Software Used

      Aurora HDR
      Lightroom
      Luminar
      Photoshop
      Raya Pro

      Techniques Used

      Focus Stacking
      High-Dynamic-Range

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      Neal Grosskopf

      Potato River Falls – Gurney, WI

      Before & After

      Here’s a long exposure I took at the Potato River Falls near Gurney, Wisconsin. These are one of the bigger falls in Wisconsin and are sized similar to Michigan’s Bond Falls. Surprisingly, not many people seem to visit these falls which I suspect is because they aren’t a state park.

      Location

      The Potato River Falls are about a 25 minute drive from Ironwood which is a great place to start if you’re looking to check out a lot of waterfalls in the area. Access to the falls requires a drive down a mile or so gravel road so prepared to have your car get a little dirty. Once there, you’re presented with a couple paths. The path on the left will take you to the smaller, upper falls. There’s technically two sets of falls over that way. Both of these falls have pretty heavy flow and because of that, don’t make for very good long exposure photography.

      The falls that you typically see in the pictures as well as mine are the much larger lower falls. Take the path on the right to access these. On the way down the trail there’s an old damaged overlook that a tree took out as well as a very very steep cliff. Ignore this area. Head down some steps and keep going. Eventually you’ll come to a nice overlook. At this overlook, you still can’t see the falls the best so now it’s time to get off the trail a bit.

      I came prepared with a 50ft rope that I tied around a tree and then used to scale the cliff walking backwards. The cliff is only about 10-15 feet tall and isn’t straight down. You could probably slide down it, but then you’d have to find a way to get up again.

      Depending on the conditions you might not need the rope, but I find it helps me get to tough places. Another thing you might want to bring are some rubber boots or in my case, dry pants (made for kayaking). You’ll need to cross the river to get to an island and from there hop across some rocks to finally get to the base of the falls. With my dry pants I can just walk through the river the entire way there. The dry pants also allow me to try out pretty much any composition I want without having to worry about getting wet.

      Composition

      Once I was setup and had my gear sitting on some small rock islands, I started looking for compositions. One thing that helps with waterfalls is to observe where the white foam is flowing. Wherever this flows, with a long exposure you can get some nice leading lines which is what I did. I also used a polarizer to allow the water in the foreground to be clear and expose the rocks below. The sun was starting to get low in the sky which lit up the face of the falls nicely. After awhile the sun dipped below the tree line and started casting a green tint on the falls. At this point I decided to leave. I pretty much had the place to myself other than a couple who sat at the top of the falls for a little while.

      EXIF Information

        Post Processing

        For post processing I took my 3 bracketed exposures and sent them to Aurora HDR which is my new go to HDR processing program. After that I sent the photo to Photoshop and added an orton effect to the trees in the background. After that, I brought it back to Lightroom and did my typical process adding adjustment brushes to different areas to add more contrast and color changes.

        Overall, I’m happy with how my Potato River Falls photos turned out especially after having issues even finding the falls the first time I went there. Thanks for reading!

        Software Used

        Aurora HDR
        Lightroom
        Photoshop

        Techniques Used

        High-Dynamic-Range

        Have a Question?

        Neal Grosskopf

        April 2019 Discover Wisconsin Calendar Photo By Neal Grosskopf

        Before & After

        Hi and welcome to my website! I thought I’d put this post up after discovering this photo will be featured in the 2019 Discover Wisconsin Calendar. I’ve been submitting photos to the Discover Wisconsin photo contest for the past couple years. Each year, they reached out to me, but it wasn’t until this year that a photo was picked for the final calendar. I’m super excited to have one of my photos featured in the calendar and to be associated with Discover Wisconsin as I think they’re one of the better places to have your photos featured in Wisconsin.

        A cool thing about this shot is it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the northern lights and photographed them which at the time was very exciting!

        Location

        This photo was taken at the Bayshore County Park in Brown County, WI which is about 15 minutes away from Green Bay, WI on the bay of Green Bay. On this night I had originally headed up to Door County to take pictures of the milky way in either Sturgeon Bay or Cana Island. Before I left I had heard that the northern lights might be out, but I wasn’t planning on shooting them as I had never seen them before and it’s never a guarantee they’ll be out. I typically like to go somewhere and take pictures if it’s a pretty strong chance I’ll get the shot I want, otherwise I’ll stay home.

        On my way up, once I passed Green Bay, I checked an app that tries to predict auroras and it said there was a good chance I’d be seeing them at that time. Shortly after that I saw these strange clouds moving faster than normal, almost like spot lights you’d see from a casino pointed in the air. I decided to make a quick detour at Bayshore County Park.

        On my way down to the water level I noticed a county cop parked in the parking lot. I was the only other person in the parking lot besides the cop so I was preparing for him to talk to me seeing as it was past midnight at this point. As I was setting up my tripod he stopped over in his car and asked what I was doing there as the park was now closed. I said that I think the northern lights are out and pointed at the horizon. He seemed a little surprised as to the naked eye at night they really don’t look that impressive. He told me to take a couple shots of it and move on which is what I did. The photo you see here is one of about half a dozen that I snapped quick before leaving. After that I headed up to a park in Door County and took photos until 3 or 4 am.

        Composition

        Admittedly, I was in a hurry when taking this shot as I didn’t have a lot of time with the cop instructing me to take a couple photos and move on. I fired off a half a dozen 30 second exposures. I found some nice rocks near the parking lot to use a foreground element and then leveled my tripod.

        For a couple shots I used my LED lights to illuminate the foreground and for a couple others I didn’t. In one shot the aurora was stronger and the foreground wasn’t lit. In another one the opposite was true. With this, I combined both photos later in Photoshop for the best of both worlds. Each were about 2 minutes apart and my tripod hadn’t moved between the shots which made it easier to combine them. Below are the two photos I used for this one –

        Before & After

        Check out a few other shots I got this night as well – https://www.flickr.com/photos/neal_grosskopf/albums/72157680117433943

        EXIF Information

          Post Processing

          Unlike a lot of my photos this was didn’t require a lot of post processing. Like I mentioned earlier, I had one shot with a stronger aurora and another with a better lit foreground so I combined both of them to create a stronger image. Beyond that, I changed some basic sliders in Adobe Lightroom like white balance, exposure, contrast and saturation. I also tried to make the branches light bright on the smaller tree on the left hand side as I found them distracting.

          Overall, I’m very excited to have this be featured in the Discover Wisconsin 2019 calendar! If you’d like to see more of my work check me out on the following sites:

          Software Used

          Lightroom
          Photoshop

          Techniques Used

          Exposure Stacking

          Have a Question?