#clouds above

[mudwerks]

clouds above

[thorsenmark]

It Isn’t Hard to Imagine a Beautiful Place in Guadalupe Mountains National Park by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A view looking to the east while walking the trails in the Salt Basin Dunes portion of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. My thinking in composing the image was to capture a sweeping view looking across those white sands with the growing vegetation. The Guadalupe Mountains would then seemingly tower above all with some blue skies and clouds to complement the west Texas landscape and national park setting

[thorsenmark]

HDR in the North Cascades National Park Service Complex (HDR) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: Needless to say, walking around the Diablo Lake Vista Point is a sight to take in! Here I was walking from one vista view to many others...more of a slight change in direction/azimuth to a look across Diablo Lake to ridges and mountains of the Eldorado Massif. For this image, I brought in five TIFF images into Aurora HDR Pro and applied a preset I developed for a natural type look for landscape settings. I then export the TIFF image into Capture NX2 and implied some control points, and color control points and some CEP filters for the final image.

[thorsenmark]

Overcast Skies Over Mountains and Diablo Lake (HDR, Black & White, North Cascades National Park Service Complex) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: The original set of TIFF images I captured I brought into Aurora HDR Pro and used a template I'd created for a natural, realistic type look. I then brought the HDR image into Capture NX2 where I used a technique I'd read from Jason Odell in his book on Capture NX2. He described it as an Ansel Adams look using and LCH editor and then adding Black points and White points before converting to black & white. I captured this at the Diablo Lake Overlook in Ross Lake National Recreation Area and North Cascades National Park Service Complex.

[thorsenmark]

Spires and Cliffs of Volcanic Rock in the Chisos Mountains (Big Bend National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: On a roadside pullout on the Basin Road into the Chisos Mountains with a view looking to the southeast. My thinking in composing this image was a layered approach with nearby plant-life in the foreground and then the mountainside, eroded volcanic remnants and peaks with blue skies above. The latter would be a color contrast to complement the more earth-tone present in the lower part of the image.

[thorsenmark]

The Valley of the Ten Peaks (Black & White, Banff National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: Imagine a canoe ride on this lake! I decided to use a B&W CEP filter for this image. I found the tonal differences really brought out contrast with this filter.

[thorsenmark]

Heading for Mountains of Texas by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A setting looking to the southwest while on US Hwy 385 at a roadside pullout and taking in views across desert landscape present with Santiago Peak off in the distance. Composing the image was a matter of balancing the desert landscape with its earth-tones with that of the distant mountain peak and ridgelines and blue skies above. I kept the windmill a little off centered as I wanted to have that also in balance with Santiago peak. I later worked with control points in DxO PhotoLab 4 and then made some adjustments to bring out the contrast, saturation and brightness I wanted for the final image.

[thorsenmark]

A Cafe in Westsound (Orcas Island) by Mark Stevens