Fountain of Fire

Posted on June 2, 2011 | 17 comments

When I began this series on Monday, I promised that I would be getting to sunsets later in the week. Far be it for me to disappoint everyone who has been so kind as to follow these images over the last few days!

This is the kind of sunset that people come to the mountain to witness. Of course, not every sunset is this magnificent so I was very lucky to be there when this one spread across the sky. I spent a lot time thinking about possible shooting locations while I was gathering the other photos that I’ve posted this week and thought it would make a nice image if I could catch the sun sitting on top of this little tree. So when the time came this was where I started before moving off to other viewpoints.

I must have shot 100 brackets at different exposures and focal lengths during the 20 minutes that it took for the sun to sink behind the mountains trying to make sure that I had enough variety to work with later. I have been working on narrowing down the best sets and processing them throughout the entire week. I’ve watched tutorials, read articles and processed the same brackets countless times trying to get the process just right. I’ve learned a lot over the last few days and I feel like it’s paid off.

This is actually my very first HDR sunset and I welcome any critiques or processing advice that you may have. From working with these images all week and viewing them for hours on end I know the parts that I believe could be better but since we are usually our own worst critic your feedback is most definitely appreciated!

Thank you and enjoy!

Camera settings: Canon 60D, Canon EF-S 18-135mm Lens, 37mm, ISO100, f/11, 9-brackets

Processing: Adobe Lightroom 3, Photomatix Pro, Topaz Adjust