Lake Taupo Sunsets
Sunset over Lake Taupo - 10mm | 3 exposures @ 5, 1.3 and 0.3 sec | f16 | ISO100
My parents recently moved to Motuoapa, a small town on the south eastern edge of lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake slap bang in the middle of the North Island. This means many excuses to travel to that part of the country, which is fine because I love it down there.
Being on the eastern side of the lake means they're on the right side for sunsets. I also discovered another (albeit rather obvious) advantage to shooting on the shore of a lake rather than an ocean, you can scope out a location at lunch time and return later in the day safe in the knowledge that, as there is no tide, the scene will be exactly as it was earlier.
These two images were taken from a picnic spot at the northern end of Mission Bay, in fact if you look closely you'll notice that the rocks in the foreground are the same rocks from slightly different angles. When shooting with such a wide angle lens (in this case 10mm) the slightest shift in came position can dramatically change the perspective.
The images were then processed using a new (to me at least) processing technique called luminosity blending. A technique which may or may not have been championed by a photographer called Jimmy McIntyre (at least it was his tutorials where I learnt of the technique).
I can't decide which image I prefer, I quite like the lighting on the foreground in the second image but the colour in the first image is really bold since it was taken earlier than the second image when the sky was at its most fiery. I also like that the volcanoes of the Tongariro National Park and visible far in the distance. What really bugs me about the first image is the perfect right angle triangle of dry rock on the foreground rock, which I could have easily splashed with water at the time.
Sunset over Lake Taupo #2 - 10mm | 3 exposures @ 10, 2.5 and 0.6 sec | f16 | ISO100