Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Arniston you Beauty!!

Hi everyone, my name is Kobus Tollig, and welcome to the Dreampix Photography blog. I am a professional South African photographer. This is my first official blog entry, and I’m happy that you are reading this and so sharing it with me. The purpose of this blog is to share the journey I’m on in the photographic world, and also to share some of my photographic knowledge. I will share photos and occasional tutorials to try and teach people something of what I know and have learned. Other than that I will take it where it naturally goes to. I would also love to make it open to you, the reader, to ask questions on how I achieved some of the images or ask for assistance, in other words this is a space where you can pick my brain (for what it's worth). Come and enjoy this wonderful journey into photography with me!!
I live in the picturesque "Overberg" region of South Africa's Western Cape province. Two days ago I decided to get out of bed early and shoot some awesome "seascape" images for the first time in 3 months. A seascape is basically a landscape shot which includes a significant portion of the ocean in the overall composition. I left at a staggering 4:30am for the small town of Arniston which is situated not too far from my home in Bredasdorp. It was a fresh spring morning and I had only a weather report to give me the faint hope of a glorious sunrise.
After arriving in Arniston at about 4:50am (and yes, I was a bit late because first light was already there), I started to look for a decent composition. I know the rock-formations very well there, but unfortunately I could not find any worhtwhile composition in my first few minutes on the beach……so I decided to look at my favorite spot and try to get something different to what I usually do.
The flowers are blooming and there are a lot of greens around to play with in the composition. I decided to go in low and use the flowers as a foreground anchor.
Here are two of the images of that morning.

This image is a 3image blend.

Canon 5D mk2 Canon 17-40mm f4 Polorized filter | Iso 100 f16 1.6sec

The next shot was taken just after the first. Again its a 3image blend.

Canon 5D mk2 Canon 17-40mm f4 Polorized filter | Iso 100 f16 0.4sec
Tip of the Day: Saving Whites
Create a new layer. Make the blending mode "soft light". Click on the 50% gray tick box. Click ok. Take a soft brush at 14% and start brushing your highlighted areas.
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