Jake Lake

Adjacent to Highway 60 is Jake Lake.  

This shot was taken on a tripod. The aperture was set to f/8.  I didn’t use a higher aperture (the usual f/22) as I wanted a faster shutter speed. I focused on the hyper-focal distance, which on the 28mm at f/8 is 329.5 cm.   

The shot was composed to incorporate the foreground log, middle ground lake and background trees and sky with clouds.  The reflected clouds in the lake is major element.  A second element I wanted to capture were the trees on the left; the white pines and specifically their wind-shaped branches.

I processed the image  with Color Efex using the Polarization, Dark Contrasts, Bring out Detail, Brilliance and Warmth, Skylight,  and Darken-Lighten Center Filters.  The Dark Contrast filter and the Bring Out Details filter enhance the light and shadow, and bring out the texture of the grasses in the foreground.  I used control points in the sky to negate the effects of the Darken Contrasts and the Bring out Details Filters. The Skylight filter was used to enhance the colour and emphasize the sunny parts of the landscape. 

In a second step, I processed the image through Photoshop Elements, with the Watercolor Filter followed by some adjustments to the brightness to recover some of the shadows lost when the filter was applied.  This processing introduces an artistic effect which to some minor extent captures the technical elements of a painting–the brush strokes–however, expressing the elements of the image in any abstract form or shape is beyond the capabilities of a tool, remaining with the painter’s hand and mind.