The great thing about doing HDR photos of a fisherman is that you can slow down and take as long as you want. I managed nine exposures for this shot since he was just sitting there like a statue. And with that beautiful scene, I couldn’t pass this one up.

This image was one of my first at River Park North in Greenville North Carolina. I had not heard about the park until recently. So, we loaded a few drinks, the dog, along with my gear and headed out for some exploration. I’m not sure how you would describe a perfect day, but this one worked for me.

Look at that water, the trees and sky, and how everything seems to just fall into place. Yes, this is the real thing. I’m not a fisherman but can still appreciate the different motivations for partaking in the activity.

Processing: All nine images were loaded into Nik HDR Efex Pro where I worked to get as much detail and definition as I could. I used strategically located Control Points to make sure that every area was balanced in a realistic way . . . just as our eyes see it.  I worked each shadow area to bring out the depth without sacrificing those areas to total darkness. I added Structure to the background areas to increase the variations of tonality in the trees and water.  After all that post processing, you’d think I’d be satisfied.  But wait! Photoshop can’t be ignored.

So, I saved the image to Photoshop and used Hue/Saturation to get the most realistic colors that I could.  And those dried up leaves on the lower right; I gave them just a little more red warmth to add some color variation. Then I added a layer for Vibrance and gave the whole scene just a bit more punch.  This one was truly a Kodak (Kodachrome) moment!  :)

Equipment used: Nikon D700 with 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 lens set at 35mm, f/8, ISO 400. Manfrotto 190XPROB with 486RC2 ball head.