Golden Hues of Gold Medal Park by Ric Rosow
Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 1:10PMSubmitted by Mill District resident Ric Rosow
Spring is arriving in fits and spurts. May 2nd was a lovely spring morning. I had been meaning to go out early on such a day to photograph sunrise. Normally I point the camera in the direction of the sun. I work with both exposure and composition to capture the wonderful colors in the sky that sunrise produces. That works well until the sun rises above the horizon. A sun above the horizon presents challenges. The brightness of the sun blows out all detail in the image in the area of sun. Multiple shots with different levels of exposure are then necessary and used to create one image that preserves what one sees during sunrise.
At the time this photo was taken I had already shot multiple images in the direction of the sunrise. The screen on back of the camera was blinking with black, indicating those were areas of no detail. Perhaps for the first time during a sunrise shoot, I turned away from the sun. In doing so I saw the beautiful colors, highlights, and shadows that sunrise created in Gold Medal Park. Although the sun was above the horizon, it was below and behind the top of the River Place Office Building. As with almost all of the photographs I take I used luminosity masks to edit specific areas of this image based on the luminosity (brightness). of the image. A luminosity mask is like an old-fashioned stencil but more refined. A digital luminosity mask has areas of black which conceal the image, areas of white which reveal the image and shades of gray that only partially conceal and reveal. With a luminosity mask in place, I can selectively edit a specific area of an image without effecting areas to which I do not want to make that particular edit. For instance, I can lower the exposure in an area that is too bright without darkening the other areas of the photo. In this image I used several luminosity masks to adjust contrast and brightness of specific areas.
You can see more of my work at www.ricrosowphotography.com.
