Lean Into It

Photo of the Day

While in Colorado I had a great time. I really never did get out and just go on a picture expedition like I thought that I would. That is until my last full day there. Our host for the week took me out and about trying to get some shots. My first attempt at getting down near the Elk River was not a good one. I kept sinking into the deep snow on the side of the road until I was buried up to my chest. Every time I tried to move I just went in deeper. I ended up flopping out like a seal in what had to be a fun event to watch. To make this photo I found a better way to get closer to the water. I simply leaned over a small driveway bridge to get my camera as close to the water as possible. This was a blind shot, but I really like how it turned out.

Technical Data

At first glance here I wanted to straighten the picture. The horizon is off a bit which usually drives me crazy. The problem was though that straightening the picture would result in the loss of a lot of the nice rounded rock in the front right of the picture. I liked that too much to get rid of so I chose to leave it as it. The deep blue sky to some is nice, but to me it makes for a boring picture. To get rid of that blue I converted the shot to black and white. To do that I used Matt Kloskowski’s light HDR black and white Lightroom preset to get started. From there I tweaked the sliders a bit to get this shot where I thought it needed to be. At first I did not like this picture, but after seeing it in black and white I like it a lot more.