The Photo

This was taken in one of my favourite locations for shooting back in February of this year. We were returning home from a long weekend in the south of Portugal, and I decided it would be nice to revisit Carrasquiera, on the banks of the Sado River. I’d been here 6 months previously and been really happy with the results, [link] but on this particular day the weather was very different, very overcast with little direct light.

However, the muted light gave a very different feeling to the other shots I’d done there, so I set up my tripod and composed some shots.

This was the second time I’d visited this location, I took this [link] on the same day.

I haven’t been back there since, but I am thinking of going back again in a couple of months to try some different compostions…there really is a lot of potential there.

Technique


Yup, it’s another long exposure using the ND400…I just feel that they work better with pier shots. The water here doesn’t move much, but nor is it still enough for reflections, and regular length exposure I ‘ve done here just don’t communicate the “feel” I have for the place.

The technique I used for measuring exposure is one I’ve described before on other deviations, like the ones I linked above, or in this article for ND Magazine [link]

Composition has to be done before a filter like the ND400 goes on, as it’s impossible to make even the tiniest adjustments when it’s in place, so I tend to compose and then shoot a test shot to make sure the composition is OK. The viewfinder on my camera doesn’t give 100% coverage, which normally isn’t that much of a problem, but on a shot like this where there are so many sticks and pieces breaking the water, it was really important to me to make sure the edges of the frame were clear without anything touching or exiting/entering the frame (with the unavoidable exception of the piers on the right hand side).

So I composed trying to keep the tall poles along the edge of the left of the frame, and making sure the tall pole to the right didn’t touch the edge of the frame.
I also tried to avoid the tall poles on the pier that I was actually standing didn’t intrude into the edge of the frame.

I then took an exposure reading and calculated the amount of filtering I’d need on the sky, as well as how long the exposure would be with the 9 stop ND filter on.

I tripped the shutter with a cable release and sat very still as the slightest movement rocked the pier I was sitting on, and would have blurred the image.

Post Processing


I shot in RAW and the first thing that this image needed was a change in the white balance. I made it a lot cooler to give it a harder, colder feeling, and then I cropped a little sky and foreground water to make the image slightly more panoramic like, which I thought suited the composition better.
Then there were just small contrast tweaks in Apple Aperture, some desaturation and then resizing to 1600 pixels, sharpening, before final resizing to 900 pixels.

Metadata

Taken at Carrasqueira, Alentejo, Portugal
Nikon D80 | Sigma 10-20mm | Nikon Cable release
Manfrotto 190XProB w/ 322RC2 ballhead
Hoya ND400 (9 stop) | Lee 0.9 (3 stop) hard GND
15 seconds | f11 | 10mm

Workflow in Apple Aperture. Title in PS CS