Small Snow Hills

I think Google Map is a great tool for scouting. I use the satellite view to view woody areas and trails. I also use the map view to clearly see water. You can discover small lakes you didn't know existed.

So I saw this trail and it wasn't far from my house so after work, I decided to go check it out. It was a 4 wheeler trail so it was nice and packed for walking. There was this long trail and I could see some kind of open area at the end. It looked like a dirt pit but everything was covered in snow. There were some big hills but also these small hills altogether.

As you can see, the sun is setting on the right side. Because we're in a pit, there's a wall of dirt on the left side and it's reflecting light back on the small hills. I'm on top of this wall so that's why it's a top-down view.

This shot was with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujinon XF55-200mm. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

For global adjustments, I increased texture and clarity to get more details out of those ripples in the snow. I lifted the blacks a bit with the tone curve. For color grading, I cooled the shadows even more.

I have a gradient filter on the top part to lower the whites. I want the viewer to concentrate on the lower part of the image first. There's also a radial filter for the flat part in the upper right part of the image to decrease highlights.

I brought the image into photoshop to remove distracting elements. After that, I thought the image looked a little dark so I lifted the whites to make it pop even more. I also added a bit of warmth to the highlight with the color grading. Very subtle but it makes a difference.

63mm 1/125sec F/13 ISO 160

Now that I know this exists, I might try again next year but different composition. I wasn't expecting to get any images so it was a bonus to get something.