Fresh snow under the light from a full moon

rkymtnhigh · Mar 21, 2013

I have been working on my night shots and a few weeks ago the perfect night came up. There was over a foot of fresh snow in the city and 2ft+ that fell in the foothills (mountains) followed by a crystal clear night with a full moon. There is a nice hill close to my home so I hiked my self out through the snow to get these pics. Let me know what you all think, C&C really helps, thanks!

1) Happy with this shot but wondering if the lights in foreground are too distracting.
120mm, ISO 1000, F/11, 20sec

2) There was a lot of things in the foreground that I didnt like and forced me to have more than 2/3 of the sky in the pic. I cropped most of the sky out and I do like the outcome.
120mm, ISO 1000, F/11, 20sec

3) This was a previous attempt at the same location that I thought was worth sharing. This was not shot in RAW and I lost a lot of the detail in the shadows in the foreground. This was maybe 45 min after sun down.
120mm ISO100, f/7.1, 4 sec,

weepete · Mar 22, 2013

Hi mate,

In your first pic, I'd say yep: crop out the foreground lights, as although they have a nice star effect the distract too much from the image. I really love your use of leading lines and the light trails which take you into the image. I was a bit unsure about the blue hills at first but I'm comng round and actually kinda like the contrast with the illumination of the city now.

2. Lacks some kind of foreground interest, and suffers because of it I think. So what you've nailed in 1 is missing from pic 2!

3. I think the horizon needs straightened and it lacks the impact of the bright city lights. The foreground is mostly black and unineresting. If it were me I'd crop most of the foreground out, leaving a few lights and making the sky and the mountains your subject

rkymtnhigh · Mar 22, 2013

Is this a little better? I also warmed up the color temp from 3000 to 3400.

pgriz · Mar 22, 2013

This could be one case where using a graduated ND filter in reverse (dark part on bottom) would work to allow you to bring out the dim colours in the upper part while cutting down on the glare from the lights in the lower part. I've never tried that, but looking at your picture, that would be a thing to try.