The Author – Bart Busschots
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Mar
14
Photo of the Week 161 – Swans in Carton Estate
Filed Under Photography on March 14, 2011 at 7:19 pm
This is an older shot that I recently stumbled across in my library, I thought it was worth sharing as a Photo of the Week. This is a great example of why bad weather can be great for photography – I believe Americans call this “storm light”, where you have weak soft sunlight against a dark angry sky. Here we see swans swimming along the river in Carton Estate near Maynooth in Co. Kildare, Ireland.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 38mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.33ev
- Processing: created by tonemapping a single RAW image with Photomatix Pro, and tweaking the result with Aperture’s built-in Dodge & Burn plugin
I like this shot Bart! The dark angry sky seems to be bringing impending doom to the soft friendly lit foreground while the little scene is standing in defiance as if to say “Bring it!” The taller trees seem as if they are reaching up to the sky instead of “cowering” like the shorter trees to the right. The swans are just there, oblivious to it all.
… or maybe it’s just a picture. 🙂 Either way I do like this! You’ve also given me something to shoot for (pardon the pun) here in Key West, FL where we have storm clouds and clear-blue sky in the same field of view. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Jim – I look forward to seeing what you come up with in FL – you guys get way more dramatic skies than we ever do!
Bart.