Moody Desert

by Ken Mickel, posted in Arizona Desert, Landscapes

38406197606_48b490c958_z

Walking around the desert looking to make an interesting landscape image when you have grayed out skies, can be quite challenging. However, I did come home with this image worthy to work with. I felt the dead tree in the foreground along with the sun bleeding through the clouds worked great with the mood of this shot.  I did an HDR merge in Lightroom then played around with tonal adjustments to come up with this. I also reduced saturation a little using the HSL panel. To finish it off, I used the radial filter to brighten up the dead tree a little bit along with using the adjustment brush to dodge and burn in other areas of the image. Photographed west of Phoenix, Arizona.

You may view a larger size version here on Flickr.

Advertisement

Arizona Landscape

by Ken Mickel, posted in Arizona Desert

34943394946_5ab15c757e_z

It is always nice, at least in my opinion to see the glow around cacti when the sun strikes the spines just right. The cactus in the foreground is a Cholla Cactus, which is one of the best, if not the best, in my area for catching that light. I stopped down my aperture to f20 to get the star effect and waited for the sun to get positioned just right for this image. I bumped us the warm tones with white balance in Lightroom.  I also used Topaz Clarity to increase contrast and Topaz Detail to bring out a little bit more details. I also did a little some dodging and burning in Photoshop to lighten highlights and darken the shadows some.

35mm, f20, 1/50 sec, ISO 100.

You may see a larger version of this image here in Flickr.

Last Light

by Ken Mickel, posted in Landscapes

38414892204_30b9ae4901_z

One of my rare Arizona desert landscapes without cactus. This image was captured at the Skyline Regional Park, Buckeye, Arizona along a hiking trail. I stopped down my aperture to f14 to get the star effect as the sun was fixing to go down, behind the mountain. I also used the adjustment brush in Lightroom to brighten the rocks in the lower right to give the effect of the light striking them. Then I lightened slightly a bit of the landscape between the rocks and the sun and to the ridge of the mountain to create paths for the eyes to follow to the sun. The eyes will either go straight from the rock to the sun, or travel up to the ridge of the mountain, then down to the sun. I also used the adjustment brush to darken some of the shadows. You may see a larger version here on my Flickr or here on 500px.

Daisy on White

by Ken Mickel, posted in Flowers

24068527028_8f7a310ae2_z

For me, the purity and simplicity of a yellow daisy against a white background is a pleasure to enjoy viewing. Hope you enjoy also. The pedal sticking up is what attracted me to this particular blossom.

Floating Gazania

by Ken Mickel, posted in Flowers

35170432251_b3134c3b5c_z

A Gazania flower floating in darkness. This image was created by layering the flower over a black layer in Photoshop and then masking out the background of the flower revealing the black layer underneath.