Bamboo

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Bamboo

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I love photographing forests, and the light that filters through them trees. Bamboo forests are even more fascinating given the size of the stems that once surround them

After visiting the famous Arashiyama bamboo forest two years ago in Japan, I no longer had the opportunity to admire this kind of forests until I found this one

In the city center of Rome there is a very well preserved botanical garden, the structure depends on the Department of Environmental Biology of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and and hosts over 3000 different plant species. Inside the botanic garden there is too a small but very beautiful and particular bamboo forest

All the shots you see therefore come from this location. I really like the perspective of shooting towards the sky since as mentioned above the bamboo tends to wrap you up, therefore the idea was to convey a feeling of openness towards the sky and towards the light

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I captured all the shots without brackets, every image is a single shot edited without the use of digital blending this time. For every image I made the same editing passages:

I increase highlights using luminosity masks, after I increased details using TTS Pro filters and with the same panel I launched orton effect and dodge and burn with I fixed all the lights over the bamboo

After increasing a color vibrance and fix the green colors similar to all the images the last touch was to increase the dark mood of the picture putting a dark vignette that gives more attention to the sky lights

I hope you will find this usefull! I love to ear that from you!

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Nikon 14-24 f/2,8 (used at 14mm)

Single Shot

ISO: 200 at f/5,6

Software: Photoshop CC2020

Plugin: TTS Pro

The Touch of the Sun

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Looking back at some of the shots taken in Japan, I found this picture that take my interest.

In particular this is the initial area of the Arashiyama Bamboo forest, at this point the bamboo is not as thick and narrow as in some of the inner points but you can appreciate the beautiful through the bamboo

The light is surely the most striking in this photo and in particular how it touches those two large dark trees beside the bamboo, the tree on the right in particular

To make the shot in my opinion very interesting there is also the beautiful game of contrasts and lights on the main avenue and at the end a tourist who enters the frame at the bottom that concludes the composition of the image

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I captured for this shot 3 exposure brakets that I blended using my panel, with the same tool I lauched high details effect very usefull to add details using frequency separation

I incresed the yellow colours applying a warmer filter first to the highlights than to the shadows, separately with a different opacity (usually shadows require less % than highlights)

With the dodge and burn tool I darkened some part of the foliage with too much light and with the glow tool I increased the luminosity at the points of the path and on the fence hits by the sun

With the use of orton effect I increased the glow of the picture, to give more energy to the sunlight. Final steps was to decrease a bit the general luminosity, recover the shadows and to add a small vignette

I really hope you will find this usefull. I’m always happy to ear this words!

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Nikon 14-24 f/2,8 (used at 14mm)

Five Exposures (-1; 0; +1)

ISO: 100 at f/9

Software: Photoshop CC2019

Plugin: TTS Pro

Towards the Sky

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Another image from the Bamboo forest of Arashiyama, in my previous post I have spoken extensively about this forest, which is an unmissable destination for those who go to Japan, but I also talked about how difficult it is to take pictures inside it to stay quiet away from tourists… Well, the photo in question instead does not consider all this 😀

In fact in this incredible location just look up at the sky in some points of the forest to find shows of trees that are intertwined upwards, leaving just some glimmers in the light to enter and it is precisely these glimmers of light to create the magical atmosphere that reigns in the Bamboo forest of Arashiyama

I love the play of light that is created between the trunks of the bamboo, especially those that have formed on the left, illuminating some parts of the forest that are in the shadow areas. I made this shot handheld, without a tripod although in fact I used bracketing as I always do for habit at the end but I have only used one exposure of these, the reason? the wind and the leaves that moved made impossible any sort of alignment between the trees and the image will result blurry if I use digital blending

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

As anticipated a moment ago this is a single shot, so I exploited the potential of luminosity masks to raise and lower the lights and shadows of the image. Although I intervened several times on the central light coming from the opening between the trees, I have also chosen to leave the light source strong, to give greater contrast to the image but also to increase the sense of illumination.

I increased details using my panel placing the effect with 50% opacity and than I launched the orton effect decreasing the opacity to 10%. After increasing the yellow tones of the image with two warm filters applied to highlights and shadows, with dodge and burn I made some adjustments on the top leaves and on the dark tree on the right

I tried as much as possible to keep an editing similar to the one in my previous photo since the same location I like the idea of having results in terms of color and lighting similar, although the subject and lighting in this case is completely different. For this reason also this time I used Color Efef Pro with Sunlight filter and reducing opacity to 35%, to increase the glow coming from the main light

Last passage was to create a dark vignette but this time without increasing the light in the center part of the frame, the light would have been really too much this time 🙂

As always I hope you will find this usefull. Love to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 14mm)

Single Shot

ISO: 100 at f/10

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro, Color Efex pro

 

The Bamboo Path

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Before leaving for Japan I spent several days doing my itinerary and looking at many photos of the locations I would visit, the bamboo forest of Arashiyama is undoubtedly one of the most photographed places in the world.  From a trivial search in google you will find hundreds of images of all kinds of this forest, and all this is enough to make you understand how much this place can be visited and photographed by tourists

For my first time in Japan I could not miss the bamboo forest of Arashiyama and for this reason I decided to move very early in the morning, for some locations such as this, the early alarm clock is the only solution to avoid hordes of tourists photo bombing and their hateful selfie sticks 🙂

The location of the Arashiyama bamboo forest is fantastic, it’s a unique place here you can find a a thick and silent bamboo forest where you can ear the only sound of the wind in through the leaves. Inside the forest I moved to the path that led to the sanctuary, looking for some openings in the trees and the perspective that would better the beauty of the place, after some attempts I found a spot where I stopped to shoot, I realized 7 exposures bracketing to make sure you capture the full dynamic range of the scene

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I started blending my exposures using TTS PRO, with the final blended image I increased the yellow tones of highlights and shadows using a yellow filter applied to luminosity masks. In my mind I imagined this pictures as a glow effect so I pushed up orton effect and with the glow tool I increased the lights over the sky

After a soft detail increase through the bamboos I increased the shadows using darks luminosity masks applied to curves tool, in the same way I fixed contrasts using midtones. With dodge and burn I made some fix on the darker part of the picture

I increased a little more the yellow tones using Sunlight filter of Color Efex pro, reducing the opacity to 35%, this effects contributes to create a beautiful glow thorough the trees and a yellow warm over the grove

To finish I created a small vignette always using my panel, if you are not a TTS PRO user to create a vignette essentially it needs a circular selection in PS with the Elliptical Marquee tool, and then invert the selection

I hope you will find this usefull. I like to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 14mm)

7 Exposure Brackets

ISO: 100 at f/10

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro, Color Efex pro

 

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Hi, my name is Giuseppe Sapori, a professional photographer and author of this website, created by yours truly to show my work and share with you the techniques I use. My expertise is in the field of Landscape Photography... (Read More)

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