#azimuth 182

[thorsenmark]

Scenic and Historic Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: At the Cades Mills and Cades Cove Visitor Center area with a view looking to the south and taking in the historical Grist Mill in this part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. My thought in composing this image had been to use a wide angle focal length, getting as close as I could to the wooden structure and grist mill while including some of the nearby forest as a backdrop. The rest was aligning myself and finding the angle that seemed to capture the best look. I later used the Perspective tool in PhotoLab 7 to straighten out the angles present for the final image.

[thorsenmark]

Denali National Park...Providing Mountain Viewing Experiences for a Few Million Years! by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: This was one of the first views that I had of Wonder Lake along the namesake trail from the North Face Lodge area. I had just come through a saddle between two hilltops and had this open plain in front of me with it's amazing view. That is what I was attempting to capture with this image in angling my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward and bring out a sweeping view across the tundra to my front with its vibrant colors of red, orange and yellows. The eyes would definitely be drawn to the waters of the lake and take in the wonder of the snowcapped peaks of Denali and the Alaska Range.

[thorsenmark]

Itineraries in Exploring Denali National Park & Preserve by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A view looking to the south while walking the Wonder Lake Trail while taking in an amazing setting with Denali and other snowcapped peaks of the Alaska Range. I did some initial post-processing work making adjustments to contrast, brightness and saturation while playing around as I learned how to work with DxO PhotoLab 3 that I’d recently purchased after moving away from Capture NX2.

[thorsenmark]

A 5-Star Day in Joshua Tree National Park by Mark Stevens

[thorsenmark]

Grassy Hillsides and Trees (Wind Cave National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: From an unnamed roadside pulloff along the main road in Wind Cave National Park. After parking in the nearby lot, I followed a walking path to the southeast. I then found this spot with an overlook across a field of prairie grasses that stretched across this plateau to Beaver Creek, near a drop-off with the Ponderosa Pines off in the distance.

[thorsenmark]

A Canoe, Ducks, a Lake and a Mountain Backdrop (Black & White, North Cascades National Park Service Complex) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A conversion to black & white using Silver Efex Pro 2 where I used some color filters to bring out a much richer tonal contrast for the final image.

[thorsenmark]

Being Close to Paradise as I Walk Amongst the Mountains of Alaska! (Denali National Park & Preserve) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: From the North Face Lodge area in Denali National Park with a view looking across some nearby tundra to the south with the snowcapped peaks of Denali rising above a ridgeline. As the hours of the afternoon slowly went by, the haze from the recent forest fires mixed with the bright afternoon sunlight slowly faded away and brought out much more distinct details with Denali. Metering the image was a matter of bringing down the exposure enough for the brighter, more highlighted areas in the upper portion the image while still being able to later pull out the more shadowed areas across the tundra. I did some initial post-processing work making adjustments to contrast, brightness and saturation while playing around as I learned how to work with DxO PhotoLab 3 that I’d recently purchased after moving away from Capture NX2.

[thorsenmark]

A View of Denali Caught in the Glow of Late Afternoon Sunlight (Denali National Park & Preserve) by Mark Stevens