The Making of Crown Point Sunset
Much as I would like to say so I did not start out my day with a plan to create Crown Point Sunset. One Saturday in November back in 2014 my wife, Carrie and I decided to drive over to the Columbia Gorge. We wanted to shoot some waterfall pictures with fall color. I had some nice shots of Multnomah Falls in summer but I was looking for something with fall color. I vaguely had the idea of doing a triptych of summer, fall, winter pictures.
The weather was nice at our house on Mt. Hood and per the forecast seemed OK in the gorge as well. Unfortunately the weather folks were as right as always. The weather over in the gorge was actually dreary, rainy, windy and anything but nice for the sort of pictures I had in mind. We persevered all morning and the best I got was this bland shot of the falls with some fall color. Not what I was hoping for at all.
By early afternoon we decided to pack it in and head home. On the way back toward Portland, still hoping for something to save the day, I decided to pull into the Portland Women’s Forum State Scenic Viewpoint. This state park offers a wonderful view of Vista House and the gorge looking east. I set up the tripod and camera and took a couple of images.
This is what the scene looked like. Not exactly awe inspiring. While talking with another visitor I noticed that the sky was lightening a bit so I decided to hang on for a few more minutes. The fog was swirling and changing shape and position all the time and the light alternating between dim and maybe getting better. Minutes later the clouds opened and a beam of light came through. It illuminated the fog and cast a hint of pink pastel color on the sky above the gorge. I had time for two frames before the clouds closed up again and I was left with a dreary November day.
The first frame was a little washed out and I did not get as much of the sky color as I had hoped but the second frame looked to have potential. But potential and reality do not always match. Back at home I sat down at the computer and started my post processing.
Post Processing Crown Point Sunset
Everyone seems to have an opinion on post processing. And when I am showing at an art show one of the common questions is “Do you enhance your photographs?” I have explained my position on this in another blog post, so I’ll just say here that the RAW file did not match my vision. Which just means there is more work to do. I knew I had a good image, maybe even a great one. But conditions were, to say the least, less than ideal and I was not sure at the start what I was going to end up with. All the elements were there, combined with my clear vision of what the scene had looked like. But in this case it did take some work to tease out all the details.
The pastel pink in the sky was perhaps the hardest, too much and it would look fake. Not enough and it would not match what I saw. The beam of sunlight did a nice job of illuminating the fog and bringing out the fall color in the Aspen trees on the point. The rain in the distance made it difficult to get a clear sense of how the river itself should look. The deep shadows in the trees at the base of the point were a challenge to balance with the bright sunlit fog.
But the bones of an amazing image were there and over several hours I was able to tease out the details to produce Columbia Gorge Sunset. If I was a photojournalist the final image would not (and should not) look like it does. But I am artist working with nature, light and camera and this is the result of I saw that day. And that is the essence of art.
Prints of Crown Point Sunset are available on Amazon or on my website.