I was enjoying one of my rather hasty forays into sunrise photography while going to work (like my earlier post, The Core). It was early Spring, the leaves still a silent promise on the branches of the trees – the fields still apparently inert, after the recent ploughing. A striking aspect of the situation was that I could not walk too deep in the countryside (I was on my way to work, after all), so I was fairly close to a heavily congested road – yet it feel like being on an entirely different planet. My ears were still hearing the constant hum of the early rush hour, yet my brain was not registering it. For some fleeting, blessed moments I was disconnected from all that frenzy, and connected with my own soul – and with the soul of the world. Then the sun rose behind the curtains of the still naked trees, and suddenly the intricate tangle of the branches looked like a set of primeval runes whose meaning is lost to us – runes written in the language of creation. Yet my soul was grasping the message, in a fundamentally different way from understanding as we usually mean it. I cannot even try and put all that in words but, well, I am posting this photo just hoping that it can somehow convey the message to you.
I have obtained this picture by blending a 5-exposure bracketing [-2.0/-1.0/0/+1.0/+2.0 EV] by luminosity masks with the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal exposure" shot), then I added some final touches with Nik Color Efex Pro 4. I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic as a possible final contribution to the processing, which especially improved the ploughed field in the foreground.
RAW files processed with Darktable.
Posted by Didacus67 (mostly off, my friends…) on 2021-07-03 05:11:46
Tagged: , Italy , Italia , countryside , campagna , grass , trees , poplars , pioppi , rows , lines , filari , clouds , feeling , dawn , sunrise , early morning , rising sun , daybreak , serenity , colourful , colorful , field , plough , ploughed , agriculture , rural , landscape , rural landscape , soul , anima , runes , creation , Nikon , D750 , Nikkor , zoom , 24-120 mm , the Gimp , Darktable , luminosity masks , poplar , exposure bracketing , light , understanding , meaning , road , rush hour , frenzy , peace , harmony , silence , connection , Nik Color Efex Pro 4 , lone tree , silhouettes , branches , rami