One of the hardest things to do in photography is take compelling shots at mid-day. Last week, I was traveling from Mono Lake California through Yosemite National Park, and we crested Tioga Pass right around 12pm. The weather was “severe clear,” which means there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Terrible for landscape photography.
Half Dome in Sepia
At this viewpoint of Half Dome, I felt compelled to take a photo, even though the lighting was difficult. In order to make the shot somewhat useable, I perfumed a bit of post-processing in software. My first step was to open the image in Lightroom 4 and increase detail in the shadows. Next, was to send the photo to Nik Color Efex Pro 4 using the Detail Extractor filter. Finally, I sent the photo to Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and applied this slight sepia coloring to the image.
The moral of the story is that when the weather is severe clear, the solution just might be black and white!
