I know that a lighthouse can improve any landscape or seascape composition. It serves as a strong symbol of guidance, the forces of nature and the danger that open waters bring.
I have also learned that the impact of a lighthouse in the composition is proportional to the distance from where you photograph it. The larger the distance, the stronger the impact. When you begin approaching a lighthouse, it becomes less and less impactful until you recognize that it is an old, rundown structure.
The featured photo is of the Swallow Tail Lighthouse on Grand Man Island. I have featured it multiple times on my blog.
Loc: 44.765328, -66.735930
Shooting
The goal here was make a couple and the Yosemite Falls to be focal point of the composition.
- Camera: Sony a6000
- Lens: Sony 10-18
- Focal Length: 12mm
- Shooting Mode: Aperture Priority (A)
- ISO: 100
- Aperture: F8
- Shutter Speed: 1/400s
- Bracketing: 3 (-1, 0, 1)
- Tripod: FEISOL Tournament CT-3442
- Ballhead: FEISOL CB-40D
Editing & Processing
It was a single RAW image editing.
Lightroom (95%)
I cropped the image to make composition tighter (Crop Overlay Tool).
Lightroom Rapid Editing workflow: I used Point Lobos style preset from Landscape Collection in a combination with adjustment presets from TOOLKIT to tweak the image.Lightroom Editing Formula: Point Lobos (1, 17, 32, 34)
Next, I use the ​HSL (Hue, Saturation Luminance) Panel and dragged the Blue Slider to the right to boost the Saturation.
Photoshop (5%)
Cleaning (Stamp Tool)Plugins: DeNoise (noise reduction), Topaz Detail (local contrast boost).
Total Time: 10min
Before & After Transformation
