{"id":3492,"date":"2025-06-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/?p=3492"},"modified":"2025-05-23T09:27:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T07:27:54","slug":"snow-at-dunnottar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/2025\/06\/09\/snow-at-dunnottar\/","title":{"rendered":"Snow at Dunnottar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is one of the first monochrome photos I made back in 2006. It was taken at Dunnottar, a fortress on a rock in Northern Scotland. I wanted to learn digital monochrome at a time when it wasn\u2019t that common (or it was just desaturation and super flat).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Snow on hills<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

From the composition\u2019s point of view, I wanted to have 3 layers. These are the foreground hill, the middle ground hill on the other side of the valley, then the sky. All 3 layers share similar colours and contrast, but originally with very different levels of brightness (I shot straight into the sun).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scene and how it was framed also create a number of triangles, with 2 obviously dominating (the far field and the valley).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the foreground, I wanted to see lots of texture in the snow. Otherwise it would have been a big empty, white space not worth looking at. So I looked for a spot that was a bit wind-swept to have that grain in the snow resulting from the wind scraping the surface. I also used the Sigma 10-20mm to get really close to the snow and accentuate that texture. I was on my knees, deep in the snow, and bending forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I included the grass in the foreground as well because I thought it would break the expanse of white snow a little bit and hold some interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo explained<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In terms of processing, I did very little. I just aimed to have a balanced exposure throughout and a lot of contrast (that\u2019s how I like my black and white).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I equalised the exposure of the valley in the middle a little bit because, being backlit, it was a fait bit darker than the rest of the scene. I didn\u2019t want it exactly the same as the rest, it was a recess that needed to be darker, but just a bit more even. I also increased contrast in the sky slightly, but as I shot into the sun with a winter dark blue sky and a strong ND grad, it was already pretty dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t do anything else. I didn\u2019t add noise because I didn\u2019t do that at the time (unlike now, the goal at the time was to have the cleanest images), I didn\u2019t add\/remove vignetting, I didn\u2019t clone out or crop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#Photography #Analysis #PhotosExplained<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of the first monochrome photos I made back in 2006. It was taken at Dunnottar, a fortress on a rock in Northern Scotland. I wanted to learn digital monochrome at a time when it wasn\u2019t that common (or it was just desaturation and super flat).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photosexplained","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3495,"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photoni.st\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}