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Real Artists Ship Photography Blog By Neal Grosskopf

Software: Photomatix

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

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    Neal Grosskopf

    High Cliff State Park Sunset

    Before & After

    Here’s a shot from a recent outing to High Cliff State Park during sunset. It looked like it was going to be a pretty good sunset when I looked out my window at home so I decided to make the 30 minute drive to High Cliff to take some pictures at the marina.

    Location

    This shot is taken at the High Cliff State Park marina on one of the giant rock barriers. I find that the southern most rock barrier has a nicer curve to it than the northern one so I take most of my photos at this location. I was also lucky that the sun set right at the tip of the barrier during this time of the year.  This is my 3rd or 4th time taking pictures at this exact location in the last couple years. Every time I go there, I try to setup in the exact same spot, but I always manage to be off by about 10 feet each time.

    Composition

    When I got to High Cliff I could tell it was going to be a pretty good sunset, so I was frantically running around trying to find the best position. I ended up settling for my usual spot. There was a small break in the clouds that I thought the sun would set nicely in so for about the first 20 minutes, I waited for the sun to get into position. This particular shot was one that I didn’t think I’d even use. Unfortunately, when the sun dipped below the horizon it didn’t reflect off the clouds like I wanted so this ended up being the best shot I got.

    When I took it, I thought about doing a nice sunstar effect like you see in the photo. As I was taking my pictures, I tried a new technique where I put my finger over the sun to block the sunstar. I was intending to using this shot later to better define the sunstar but it didn’t quite work how I wanted and I ended up using my bracketed set of three images as they were.

    The sun was at a nice position here where it was reflecting some sweet orange light off the rocks in front of me which I haven’t had happen before while shooting here.

    EXIF Information

      Post Processing

      I original shot bracketed shots at -2, 0 & +2 exposures. I had also shot a couple more at darker exposures with one going as far as -5. In the end I used the original 3 plus one more at -5. The -5 exposure helped with the sun as usually that is too bright. I took those 4 shots and ran them through Photomatix with pretty mild settings.

      Then I took it back into Lightroom and brightened it up quite a bit. After that, I tweaked white balance, contrast, clarity, vibrance and made a lot of small tweaks using adjustment brushes.

      While there’s a few things I wish I could have changed about the shot, I’m happy how it turned out and think it’s a bit different than many of my other shots and offers something unique to add to my collection of High Cliff State Park photos.

      Software Used

      Lightroom
      Photomatix

      Techniques Used

      Focus Stacking
      High-Dynamic-Range

      Have a Question?

      Neal Grosskopf

      Fonferek Falls, Green Bay, WI – Winter Melt

      Before & After

      Here’s a shot I got from underneath Fonferek Falls in Green Bay, WI. I was just to the falls yesterday, but this particular shot was from about a month ago. There was a week straight where the temperatures got really warm for February in Wisconsin (50 degrees) and that caused most of the snow to melt. It also caused the falls to thaw out and starting flowing again. I’ve spent the last year trying to shoot Fonferek, but every time I went there it was either dry or frozen so this was an exciting trip for me. Exciting enough that I even took some vacation time at work to visit them.

      Location

      The falls are located near Green Bay Wisconsin. Like I said earlier they are frequently dry so it’s best to visit them in the spring or after a heavy rain. I recently invested in some NRS Dry Pants and wet shoes which have been helpful during my visits because Bower Creek is like a crazy flooded river when it’s flowing.

      I also captured a video while I was here –

      Composition

      This isn’t my first shot behind the falls, so as far as the camera angle goes, it’s pretty similar to my other attempts. I tried to include the full arch of the cave area on the right hand side to show how big it is. Another thing with these behind the falls shots is it really tests the dynamic range of your camera. Usually you can’t do it with a single exposure so you have to use bracketed shots.  For this one I did a -3, 0 & +3 for my exposure bracketing. I also took another set of shots without my ND filter to get more definition of the falls since my previous set of bracketed shots was around 15 seconds. Finally, I took another set of shots with the focus set on the foreground.

      EXIF Information

        Post Processing

        I first ran all 3 sets of bracketed shots through Photomatix to even out the exposure. After that I did my focus blending in Photoshop. After that I used my faster shutter speed stack to blend in just the falls area of the shot. After this, I did the rest of the edits in Lightroom using adjustment brushes.

        Software Used

        Lightroom
        Photomatix
        Photoshop

        Techniques Used

        Focus Stacking
        High-Dynamic-Range

        Have a Question?

        Neal Grosskopf

        O Kun de Kun Falls – Upper Michigan

        Before & After

        Here’s a shot from my visit to O Kun de Kun Falls last fall. This was part of a day trip I made to Lake of the Clouds & Canyon Falls as well as O Kun de Kun Falls. This was my first time visiting the falls, as I was going to visit them a previous time but lost my wallet at Agate Falls and had to end the trip early.

        Location

        O Kun de Kun Falls are located another 15-20 minutes north of Agate Falls & Bond Falls. Most people visit Bond Falls and a few more go to Agate Falls, but I’m betting even fewer make their way to O Kun de Kun Falls. Probably the biggest reason I imagine is it’s a 1+ mile hike to the falls. When I visited it had just rained and the trail was really muddy. I was slipping and sliding the entire mile hike. One thing to remember while hiking is there’s actually an upper and lower falls. When I first heard the upper falls, I thought they might be the actual falls, but I had read online that another hiker fell for this and missed the lower falls entirely so I hiked on. I was able to spend maybe 2 hours at the falls alone (which is really unusual for me when visiting waterfalls) as I arrived in the parking lot not too long after sunrise. I wanted to get to the falls before the sun got too high in the sky, otherwise it would cast harsh highlights and shadows on the falls from the surrounding trees. Another reason to always visit waterfalls on an overcast day.

        Composition

        For this particular shot, I had finished taking 90% of my shots for the day and this was sort of an after thought. I had crossed the bridge over the river to see what was on the other side. I was delighted to see a nice ‘window’ on the rock ledge the falls flow over. Right away I knew this was going to be a good composition to shoot from. At the time other hikers were arriving so I was trying to get the shot before I had to deal with people.

        For this shot, I actually took three different shots. I took my first series of bracketed shots at -2, 0 & +2 while focusing on the background. I did this again for the rocks in front of me for the foreground. Finally, I took one more set of bracketed shots at a quicker shutter speed for the water in the falls.

        EXIF Information

          Post Processing

          The first this I did was was run my 9 photos through Photomatix. This type of composition requires this as there’s just too much dynamic range to show everything at once. Otherwise you can’t really expose for the dark rock ledge and background. I did this for my foreground stack, background stack and finally the falls stack.

          Next up, I took these three tiff files and blended them in Photoshop, first focus stacking the foreground and background. After that I blended in the faster shutter speed of the falls. If I hadn’t done this, the falls would just be a giant white wall of water and wouldn’t have much detail. The fact that I took this shot at all was probably an accident when I was at the falls, but when I started processing the shot I was excited that I had done this. Something I will consider in the future as I like to have a little detail in the wall of the falls, but prefer the water below to be a longer exposure.

          After this, I brought the photo back into Lightroom and did my usual tweaks. I made heavy use of adjustment layers to give emphasis to different areas of the photo. Total editing time might of been maybe 6-10 hours over the course of a couple weeks.

          Software Used

          Lightroom
          Photomatix
          Photoshop

          Techniques Used

          Focus Stacking
          High-Dynamic-Range

          Have a Question?