Here are the stories behind this Salon’s highest rated images:
Assignment – Venice Pier – Don Bock
My wife and I winter in Florida and enjoy beautiful sunsets on the many Gulf beaches near Englewood. This particular photograph was taken at Venice Beach on December 29, 2020. It is a popular spot for snowbirds who come down to the beach for sunset and then leave shortly after the sun sets. With this in mind I waited a bit for the beach and pier to clear of people so as not to get any motion blur of people moving through where I had set up. I was fortunate to have a couple set down on the beach near the water so I moved my tripod/camera to include them in the composition. I took this image about 22 minutes after the sun had set. I used spot metering and exposed for the highlights in the sky. With the diminishing light, I added 1 stop exposure compensation using the in Camera histogram to push the exposure to the right. The final exposure was f2.8, 1/13 sec, ISO 400 at 64mm. The image was taken on my Sony A7RM3. I did the post processing in Photoshop’s Camera Raw. I brought up the shadows and warmed the image up a bit using the ISO, orange and yellow sliders. Brightened up the foreground and railings a bit using the dodge tool. Also used the clone tool to remove some debris on the beach.
Creative – Ride Like the Wind – Betty Bryan
I photographed the horse and rider at a barrel racing event. The background was very busy with a fence, a barrel, and signs. I had purchased a background image several years ago and decided to do a composite with the 2 images.. I put the background over the horse and rider image, then applied a mask. With a feathered soft brush I gently removed the top layer from the horse and rider. I was using a hand held Canon 1Dx Mk II with a Canon 100-400 mm lens, ISO 400, 1/640 sec @ f/6.3.
Pictorial – Wabasha bridge – Jay Olson-Goude
