My Photo Guides

Sun Rays on Yosemite Valley We had amazing conditions for the photography workshop in Yosemite last week. This was the first morning's sunrise, with sun rays shining down on morning fog. There had been several dozen people at this viewpoint minutes earlier, but once the sun cleared the mountains, nearly everyone decided to go get breakfast. Someone in our group asked about that, but I said "Let's give it another five minutes." Sure enough, when the sun closed the gap in the clouds and started shining down between them, light rays started moving around the Valley. The dynamic range of the scene was too great for one exposure, so this image was created from five bracketed exposures, adjusted in Lightroom 5.7 and combined in Photomatix 6 (beta 2) HDR software. I added another popular photo from this morning, produced using the prior version of Photomatix, for comparison on my blog: http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2017/05/17/sun-rays-on-yosemite-valley/ #...

Fall Colors in the Toiyabe National Forest Sun rays break through clouds over the Bodie Hills, October 2015. #landscapephotography #BodieHills #HDR

Sunset in Bandon on the Oregon Coast Sunset in Bandon, Oregon last month, early in my "victory lap" circling the Western U.S., celebrating the release of my California Landscape Photography guidebook! More from my Oregon/Washington album: https://plus.google.com/photos/+JeffreySullivan/albums/6114678649008909393 www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com #landscapephotography #hdr #travelphotography #visitoregon

From The Early Days of G+ This album first shared on August 11, 2011 only received 51 +1s, but it had 58 shares!  Now an album is lucky to get 1/4 of the distribution of a photo post, and photo posts do not get full distribution to your contacts who opted in to see them.   The site seemed to be much more interesting under the original algorithms.  Perhaps human brain chemistry favors the unexpected, the pleasant surprise which is more likely to come form people NOT related to you as a previous friend?  That would be terribly inconvenient for a network being designed to determine and mainly distribute content to your friends and social connections that they feel you can market to. #landscapephotgoraphy   #hdrphotography   #HDR   www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com Originally shared by Jeff Sullivan In honor of Trey Ratcliff's photowalk 6:30pm at Stanford tonight, I'm sharing around 200 HDR images I produced in 2009. (Thanks in advance for shares!)

Badwater Basin Sunrise This was taken at 6:55 am in the same location as my black and white photo a couple of posts ago, captured at 7:32 pm the night before.  Shooting into the bright oncoming sunrise, I used a graduated neutral density filter to reduce the brightness of the sky and captured three bracketed exposures to improve dynamic range.  I adjusted an image in Adobe Lightroom 5.7, applied that to three exposures and sent them to Photomatix HDR (Soft 2 processing if I remember correctly) to include more shadow and highlight detail in this high contrast lighting, readjusted the resulting TIF file in Lightroom, then sent that result to OnOne Perfect Effects 9 for a final tweak. This is a large basin where a giant lake evaporated thousands of years ago, and the mineral-rich waters left a deposit of rock salt.  Wind deposits dust on the salt flats, but pools of water dissolve it into salt water, and the dirt settles to the bottom, so when the surface re-crystallizes, it becomes salt ...

Sunrise over the Salt Flats This image of an oncoming sunrise was taken in Badwater Basin salt flats in Death Valley National Park last month.  It was adjusted in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.7, Photomatix 5, and on1 PerfectEffects 9. #deathvalley   #HDR   #On1Pics   #landscapephotography   Death Valley Workshops

Orion Before Launch Friday Morning NASA's Orion sits on the launch pad illuminated by spotlights at 6:30 am on its launch day, December 5, 2014. #orion   #nasasocial   #nasa   #orionfirstflight   #HDR www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com

Can HDR Software Finally Produce High Dynamic Range? I used it a lot in 2008 and before.  I avoided it like the plague after I bought a camera with better dynamic range in 2009.  Here's why I'm starting to use HDR software more again. ...continued on my blog: The Redemption of High Dynamic Range (HDR) Software http://activesole.blogspot.com/2014/09/redemption-of-high-dynamic-range-HDR.html #HDR   #Photomatix   #photographytutorials   #landscapephotography