Looking east towards the White Mts. and the dawn sky over the desert chapparal of Buttermilk Country, Inyo County, California. This image was made just minutes before the "Basin Mtn. Flowers" photo on this page, and from about the same spot. It really pays to look all around when photographing natural phenomena. Rendering the scene was a challenging exercise in contrast control, as is often the case with color landscape photography. As most of us can attest, it is common to take pictures of sublime skies, only to get our prints back from the lab with white skies where we remembered orange, and/or black or muddy foregrounds where we saw a beautiful spread. Such are the drawbacks of standard machine printing and the casual photographer's failure to control contrast in camera. To retain detail in both bright and dark areas, light must be held back from the brightest zones. This can be done in camera with graduated and/or split neutral density filters, or in post-production with composited multiple exposures (one or more frames for highlights, midtones, and shadows). In this case, both methods were used. It is much easier said than done, especially to execute artistically.
© Jim Emery Photography
