Friday, September 18
Another very hazy day today, once again Lightroom and Pixlr to the rescue.
Rode out after 10AM once it hit 60°F (15.5°C) under sunny skies and very hazy conditions on the horizon.
I drove Fiona north on WY 530, the road which parallels the Flaming Gorge Reservoir all the way from Green River to Manila, UT until I reached the Firehole Canyon Overlook almost a mile north of the Lost Dog road.
Did I mention it was hazy? I'm sure on a clear day, the overlook provides a nice view into Firehole Canyon, today it was just blues.
Mid-morning view from Firehole Canyon Overlook
The original version after cropping to match and only
applying "Auto" settings in Lightroom and exporting
as JPG from original RAW format
I'd "dropped a pin" where I thought would be a good overlook point for the Chimney Rocks which are on the east side of the reservoir using Google Maps. It actually plotted a route for me using Lost Dog Road, then FR 167 to FR 168.
A pic from the end of FR 168
The original version after cropping to match and only
applying "Auto" settings in Lightroom and exporting
as JPG from original RAW format
Back tracking a bit, I decided to try going further towards the water on FR 179 and got a much better view of both North and South Chimney Rocks. The thicker of the two is the North rock.
The original version after cropping to match and only
applying "Auto" settings in Lightroom and exporting
as JPG from original RAW format
Not to shabby a location for a campground eh?
There appears to be a paved road leading to it!
Note the boondockers on the beach....looks like a great location
though I doubt there's cell signal down there.
Update: It's confirmed: zero signal down there.
Rested away the rest of the day, doing some light exploring riding Yagi and checking out some of the trails around me. The sky went fully overcast and gray mid-afternoon and remained gray the rest of the day, no good light for pics.
The wind picked up briefly, but has now died down as well. Too bad, was hoping it would clear some of the haze and smoke from wildfires to the west of here.
8 comments:
Wow, you got some great shots there today. Gorgeous vistas, congratulations.
Even with the smoke the haze adds to the photos.
Thanks CCjon, without post-processing none of the pictures I took would have been usable!
Your posts consume a lot of time for me. Almost always I'm driven to Google Maps to figure out where you were and how you got there. And maps take me down a rabbit hole -- with this post exploring the town of Manila, Utah.
I'm envious of your adventures. You're fortunate to find yourself in a situation to make them.
I always wonder though, especially being in remote places by yourself, what sort of emergency preparations you make in terms of water, food, possible shelter, and what your plans are in case your machine dies?
And I can well imagine the utility of Lightroom to transform images. Might be nice to share a comparison sometime -- the original view versus your transformed one.
Be well Dom!
steve
Thanks for your comments and queries Steve Williams, I went ahead and added the original pics for the first three shots in the post for your viewing as requested. All I did was crop to sort of match the end result pic and used the "auto" feature in Lightroom to let the software "optimize" the pic without input from me.
Hmmm, emergency preparations. I tend to carry water with me especially in desert terrain. I now carry the ELB: Emergency Locator Beacon that will use satellites to call for help in a life and death situation. It can also text short messages depending on the plan you engage beforehand. I carry spares (except this trip where I stupidly left the spares box at home in Scarlett's trunk). If I can't self-recover, I guess I'm walking out for help if possible.
As I've aged and perhaps gotten wiser and definitely more wary of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere, I now tend to turn around when things get sketchy where I would have just blithely and stubbornly charged ahead. I know my machine's limitations and mine for sure, given all the breakdowns I've experienced. Having a riding partner would of course be ideal, in case one motorcycle breaks....when can you get out west and join me?
Cell coverage was actually available in parts, out there on those boonies....not something to count on for sure, but nice.
Lightroom certainly can transform a digital image. I'm always wondering what scenes actually looked like, especially with some grand landscapes that I often see that end up being compilations of several exposures, processed with HDR software, and then further manipulated in Photoshop. While appearing otherworldly, they're more like dreams than reality.
Hence my interest in reality.
The first two you shared seem to be shrouded in murk. Lightroom "cleared the air" and turned up the lights. I wonder though, which version looked more like the reality you witnessed?
I hear you regarding getting older and wiser. I don't forge ahead in bad weather as I once did.
I fear it will be some time before you see me appear on the horizon. With Kim facing another complex spine surgery, my support role will continue for a length of time that I cannot predict. For now, my adventures, on two wheels, or with the camera, are pretty close to home.
So you'll have to supply the vicarious experiences!
In the case of those three picture comparisons, Steve Williams, I would say reality was somewhere in between....The human eye is truly a magnificent instrument in dealing with bad lighting situations.
Wow, the scenery keeps getting better and better. And otherworldly. Isn't the world a beautiful place?
Truly, SonjaM....thanks for commenting
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