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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Threatening clouds approaching the lake

It was a hazy day on the Iseo lake, and dark clouds were approaching the lakeshore.
Sometimes it seems that the haze has the will to embrace everything...

I find these kind of photos easy to take, but hard to "develop". They tend to have few colors, and a lot of grays and shades. Usually my first intent is to try to render the hazy atmosphere of the day, but it doesn't always works... so in this shot I tried a more dramatic interpretation, trying to put emphasis on the line of the hills, the waves, and the approaching clouds.

To do this required a bit of work: balancing the lights and the shadows isn't easy so the final result is achieved thanks to some local filtering: a bit of brightness on the water, a lot of contrast on the sky, a "hard" tone curve, a local emphasis on the right "curling" cloud, some grain and a bit of vignetting to make the central part of the photo stand out.

Critical comments are welcome :-)