Picture of the day - July 13, 2007

A gorgeous Ontario sky

Photo courtesy of Emile Cooper. There are a number of factors that affect how well a photographer captures a given image, and Emile Cooper apparently nailed each and every one of them to come up with today's picture of a gorgeous sky over the Canadian province of Ontario. The deep blue of the sky, the puffy clouds, and the long rays of the sun work together with the extremely low vantage point to create an image that is both out of the ordinary and extraordinarily beautiful. I'm often amazed at the beauty of the images that are submitted to TodaysPhoto.org for publication as "Pictures of the Day", and every time I see one like this it reminds me of just how much I still have to learn about the art of capturing an image that not only shows a scene as it is, but also enhances it and makes it seem larger than life. The clever use of Photoshop and other image editing programs can make a picture "better" than it really deserves to be, but it's fairly easy to tell when the photographer "got it right" with the camera - and Emile certainly did just that with this outstanding effort! Here are a few particulars about the image: This photo taken around 6:30pm along the bank of the Snye River just outside of Wallaceburg Ontario Canada. It was shot with a Canon 1DMkII and 17-40 lens @17mm. I set the exposure for the sky, then used the Canon EX580 flash to expose the grass in the foreground. The raw file was then adjusted and saved for the web. Settings were ISO 50 1/200 F/22.0. Flash was fired at full power. Visit the POTD Archives for previous "Pictures Of The Day"!     Submit a photo of your own!            Why I publish the "Picture of the Day"