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Real Artists Ship Photography Blog By Neal Grosskopf

Software: Luminar

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

    Lighthouse & Sea Smoke – Algoma, WI

    Before & After

    Every day as I drive to work, I see a photo similar to this one on a billboard. I’ve always wanted to take a stab at shooting this myself, but I typically don’t take a lot of photos in winter as I use that time to process my photos from the rest of the year. Where I live, it’s typically cloudy all winter as well. To get this type of photo, I needed three conditions to happen:

    1. It needed to be a clear day so the sun could illuminate the sea smoke.
    2. It needed to be a real cold day, early in the season so that Lake Michigan wasn’t frozen over and the water was still warmer than the air creating the sea smoke. For this day it was -10 degrees out!
    3. Finally, the ice in the harbor needed to not be frozen so far out that the sea smoke was no longer near the lighthouse.

    Location

    I shot this photo in Algoma, WI at the lighthouse there. This particular lighthouse is one of the closer ones to where I live which is about an hour and 15 minutes away. One nice thing about sunrises in the winter is you don’t have to wake up so early for them. The sunrise on this particular day was 7:25am. Also I found that it was best to wait another 20 minutes after sunrise where the sun was starting to get above the sea smoke clouds.

    The Algoma harbor offers many different angles to shoot from. For this one, I used the traditional one from the center parking lot. In a couple other shots I took, I included more foreground which is lacking in this photo.

    I found that shooting in the winter can be tricky vs. the other times of the year. For instance, I put a tripod plate in my mouth and the metal froze to my lips! Also, when I’d use my viewfinder, I would breath on the back of my LCD screen it with would turn to frost. Finally, the viewfinder/LCD auto-toggle feature on my Sony A7 camera stopped working so I had to use a custom button to flip between the two.

    Composition

    I took a lot of shots on this morning, but since it was so cold out, I feel like I didn’t put as much thought into composing them as other times of the year. I was trying to keep the lighthouse offset via the rule of 3rds in most shots. In many of my other shots, I also left the sun outside of the frame as it was too bright, but for this particular shot it was just starting to rise above the clouds so I included it.

    The Algoma harbor offers great leading lines with its catwalk out to the lighthouse so I always like to include that in the photo leading to the lighthouse.

    EXIF Information

      Post Processing

      This photo, as well as a few others I took this day included a lot of post processing. So much, that it involved using four different pieces of software to make it. I started out taking my three bracketed shots taken at -2ev, 0ev & +2ev and opening them in Aurora HDR. I’ve pretty much converted over to Aurora HDR from Photomatix now since it came out for Windows. It does a much better job than Photomatix and also includes a few other non-HDR filters you can use to enhance a photo.

      After getting a properly exposed image in Aurora HDR, I brought the file back into Lightroom. Next I made my basic changes with white balance, contrast, clarity, exposure and saturation. I also use a lot of adjustment brushes to change different areas of the photo such as the ice and sky.

      After that, I sent the photo to Luminar which is another program I just bought. In Luminar I used a couple more filters that are only available in it. I used a really subtle Sun Ray filter in this on as well.

      Finally after all of that, I sent it to Photoshop and added an Orton Effect on the ice.

      Software Used

      Aurora HDR
      Lightroom
      Luminar
      Photomatix
      Raya Pro

      Techniques Used

      High-Dynamic-Range

      Have a Question?