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"Night
Glow" is one of my favorite images, although it is
very subtle in terms of light and color. While it
may lack the "internet thumbnail" appeal of simpler,
more boldly colored images, I find it much more
satisfying than many of my other photographs. The
shot was taken during the period of twilight I call
the "glow." Glow occurs on the very edge of light,
usually about a half-hour before sunrise or after
sunset, on a day when most of the sky is free of
clouds. During this time, the only light source is
the part of the sky above where the sun has set or
will rise, which is glowing faintly with yellow or
orange light. This light bathes the landscape in a
very faint yet warm glow (hence the name), with
almost no shadows. The sky above the landscape is
dark and blue, providing a nice color contrast. When
you have to raise your ISO to 400 to keep your
exposure times under 30 seconds, then you know you
are shooting during peak glow.
For
this image, I had spent the sunset hours making
photographs of light kissing piles of jumbled
boulders, while a giant and seemingly endless wave
cloud passed overhead. As sunset drifted into
twilight, I thought the light show was over for the
evening, when I stumbled across this scene.
Everything seemed to come together nicely for this
image: the rocks in the background were glowing in
the twilight, and the wave cloud passed right over
them. It was the swirl in the foreground rock,
however, that really drew my attention. The shot
lined up perfectly, with the foreground rock, middle
ground boulders, and background sky all relating to
one another, creating a progression of perspective
that would give the viewer a sense of "being there"
in the scene.
Technically, this image was difficult to execute
because of the lack of light; it was so dark I was
barely able to focus. In situations like this, I
find Live View to be invaluable. Live View, zoomed
to 100%, allowed me to achieve proper focus
throughout the scene. For more information on using
Live View, read my
Live View Tutorial. I selected the bush
behind the foreground rock as my focal point, and
then stopped the lens down to f/16 to achieve
sufficient depth-of-field to ensure sharp focus from
near to far. To keep my exposure at 30 seconds, I
was forced to increase my ISO to 400. When working
in near darkness, light disappears fast, so it is
best to keep your exposure times as short as
possible (without increasing ISO too much, as you
can start to get digital noise build-up), to allow
you to take as many images as you can before the
light fades entirely.
Technical data: Canon 5D Mark II, 14-24mm
zoom lens (@14mm), Aperture Priority mode, manually
focused using Live View, ISO 400, f/16, 30
seconds. |
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Color
slide film, with its extra saturation and contrast,
was excellent at rendering the colors and tones of
glow light, but digital raw files don't quite get it
right. I have found that a boost in saturation and
contrast is necessary when editing a digital glow
image in Photoshop to achieve that "film look." Raw
files, with their extremely broad dynamic range,
simply leave low-contrast glow scenes with a very
flat look. Using a Curves adjustment layer, I
increased contrast in the rocks and throughout the
foreground. Using another Curves adjustment layer, I
applied a local contrast adjustment to the sky (by
masking out the foreground), bringing out the white
clouds above the boulders. I then increased
saturation in the red and yellow channels
significantly (by about +35) to bring out the color
that was perceived by the eye, but somewhat muted in
the raw file. Blues also got an increase in
saturation, but only a subtle tweak, just enough to
provide a counterpoint to the warm tones in the
image.
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