Otter Cliffs - a photo on Flickriver

Otter Cliffs

Drum roll please …… and now for something completely different. Ok, not really. You’ve likely seen a variation of this scene even if you can’t readily associate it with Acadia National Park. It’s as iconic as the lighthouse, and I really did set out to try and do something different with the location. Best laid plans as they say. On this particular morning, I didn’t even have to jostle with a workshop group. On other days you could find at least ten or twelve people trying really hard not to topple themselves or their tripods walking among these rather slippery rocks. Believe me, greased owl snot and if you aren’t from the South that means really lubricious.

I had found this really nice foreground material in the form of some rust colored ferns and a piece of rather large driftwood that would nicely frame the bottom third and more importantly, nobody else had done it. Sad news was that I had to quickly abandon it because the light was not going to hit that sheltered spot for a really long time. So, carefully picking my way down among the rocks I opted for a vertical composition heavily weighted on the beach.

In the interest of full disclosure, this isn’t the sky that actually came up over Otter Cliffs. I had to shift my tripod closer to the point of sunrise to my left and blend the images in post as the colors in my specific composition pretty much stank. It was going to be a HDR situation anyway so the work involved was going to be about the same or so I thought anyway. Some folks get irritated by this. That’s not real! Well, you are right and if documenting a scene is what you are after I’d imagine it does raise the ire a bit but that isn’t my goal. I want to create a sense of place. The difference is simple. Would you look at an oil painting and say “That’s not real?” Of course not, yet the tradition of photography causes all of us to question the validity of my choice with this admittedly loose interpretation of the landscape. Neither am I flippant about doing it as it opens the inquest as to the “reality” of all my other work. For me, it is about how this place makes me feel and my goal is to evoke that. If that means a glorious sunrise was off to the left, I’m going to move it every time.

I spoke with another photographer while I was standing there who was lamenting the cruise ship coming into Bar Harbor that was moving across his composition. He thought nothing of removing it with content aware yet when I told him what I was going to do, he could never see going that far himself. I have no issue with that choice. I just don’t see much of a difference between adding something or subtracting it. Granted there is a range that people will accept for sure and I don’t want to push beyond that but as long as you are honest about your work and process I don’t see a problem.

Beyond the sky, I merged two shots of the foreground as well. I wanted the sea to have the smooth flattened out look while getting sunlight on the rocks and the cliffs. Sure, you could do this with one shot but I wanted to keep everything within the same ISO range so as not to deal with noise issues in various parts of the final rendition. So with a little forethought and sitting on the rocks getting cold for forty-five minutes, this is the result. Blending the sky in was much more difficult than I’d imagined. After a couple of hours and getting sick of using Photoshop to make the mask, I used onOne Software’s Perfect Mask which I’m really happy with and would recommend if you are doing to be doing masking with fine edge details.

Gear:
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 16-35mm 2.8 Lens
Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
Benro C-168 Tripod
Really Right Stuff BH-40 Ballhead

Byron O'Neal Photography | Facebook | Blog | Google+ | Field Workshops l 500 px

Taken in: United States / Maine / Otter Creek (show map)

Taken on: October 17, 2012

Tags:

acadia national park

acadia

bar harbor

sunrise

landscape

otter cliffs

otter cliff

otter point

onOne software

onOne

Perfect Mask

HDR « less

Sets appears in: • Acadia/Mount Desert Island

Groups appears in: • Teddy Likey: A Celebration of US National Parks

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