House Of Light Rays

I planned to go to this location because of the river. I used SunCalc.org to help me decide when to go but unfortunately, it was cloudy, and also the sun was not to our lefts enough. We'll need to come back much later in the year and also when the tide is higher. I managed to get this shot when the light peaked just a little bit.

This shot was taken with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujinon 27mm F/2.8. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

I took 3 shots and merged them HDR in Lightroom. Probably didn't need to in this case but I didn't take a chance. My goal with this shot was to make a nice picture out of a not-so-good picture.

I will try another approach with my photo editing/explaining. Not many people are seeing this blog anyway so I might as well do what I think seems fit.

I wanted to warm it up with the light peaking just a bit through the thick clouds. I tried my best to create some highlights on the grass in the foreground. Lifted the exposure a bit but mostly the whites are great to increase the highlights to emphasize the brightest parts. I also have a gradient filter that targets only the brightest part of the foreground, excluding the river and increased clarity, texture, contrast, and temperature. I placed a radial filter in the sky to soften the light with the dehaze and lifted blacks.

27mm 1/125sec F/11 ISO 400

While shooting the river, my friend said: Hey, look over there. The sun was breaking through the clouds and creating some nice sun rays. So I frantically switched lenses and started composing. Now that was tricky because there was nothing clean about this image because of all the houses but there was one house that stood out so I made that the subject.

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

By the time I realized this composition, the clouds have moved a bit to the left so you can see I was a little late with the sun rays. In order to balance the image, I couldn't center the house. I didn't want to cut off the sun-rays so everything is a little to the right.

Again, this is an HDR image. I warmed everything with the highlights also cooled the shadows in the color grading panel. To emphasize the light from the sun rays, I used a local adjustment brush and increased the exposure a bit and temperature just a little bit. I used a big radial filter for my vignette. There's also another radial filter just targeting the house region. This is to increase exposure, temperature, whites, and clarity. It's to kind of create a spotlight effect.

Finally, I brought the picture in Photoshop and removed the houses. At first, I didn't think it would've been possible. This turned an ok picture into a really good one.

110mm 1/500sec F/11 ISO 400

It's one of my favorite images of the year and it was a total fluke. The reason for the high ISO is because when I was shooting the river, the grass moved a lot because of the wind. When driving to the river, it looked grim and not great for shooting the shot I had in mind but we went anyway. I will go back to the river later this summer.