Photo by James Cochrane
White Sands National Monument de-light
This photo was taken in March, 2020, looking across glorious, light-reflecting gypsum sands of the White Sands National Monument, a stunning part of New Mexico I had never seen and probably will not again, not far from where the Trinity Site near Alamogordo saw the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was dusk, we were lucky to be there when these complex rolling clouds spread their wings across the sky, giving me a picture I thought might have come from the famous Look magazine, with one of whose photographers, Archie Lieberman, I had the privilege, back when I was much younger, of learning from while studying in Chicago.
Post processing notes:
Pre-Brilliance AI, after cropping, I used the develop tab to increase contrast and shift the white-black balance before turning to several Effects. These included Colour Adjustment (to shift the hues on the clouds in particular), Dynamic contrast (variously applied with masking), Noise reduction, a minor use of the Photo Filter, followed by a mild Vignette and ending by adding a Border. Then I made further minor adjustments to exposure in the Develop tab before adding Text (my name at the bottom right). Partly playing to see what I could do with On1 Photo RAW, it turned into a photograph that powerfully captures what I experienced emotionally at the time, enough for me to take the risk of submitting it for competition (not something I have done otherwise).Exif information:
| Copyright: | James Cochrane |
| Camera: | iPhone 6s |
| Aperture: | f/2.2 |
| Focal Length: | 4.1500000953674mm |
| ISO: | 25 |
| Shutter Speed: | 1/155 sec. |
| Created: | September 14, 2019 09:47:35 |