About the Image(s)

Russian Gulch State Park is a popular destination for visitors to California's North Coast. It's about a four-hour drive from Sacramento, but well worth it. I met a group of fellow hikers up there last weekend. Fall was definitely in the air, with overcast skies and a big storm brewing off the coast. After a long hike up Fern Canyon to a waterfall on Saturday, I drove out to the headlands and was simply mesmerized by the sound and sights of the powerful waves rolling in, churning up the surf and pounding the coastline.

I found an area sheltered somewhat by the wind and set up my tripod and camera gear looking south in this image. The nice thing about shooting on a gray day like this is the light is muted and uniform--not contrasty at all. But that's also the challenge since the light can also be a bit flat, necessitating some finessing in Camera RAW. My setup: Canon 5D Mark IV with my Canon 16--35 mm zoom at 27 mm. I wanted to capture some of the motion in the ocean, so in addition to my ever-present polarizer, I added a 3-stop neutral density filter for a longer exposure (triggered remotely). ISO: 100. Exposure f/16 for 1.30 seconds. I monitored the histogram on the back of my camera to make sure the highlights weren't clipped. The RAW file was fairly dark but the data were there, so I went to work on the sliders.

Profile: camera matching landscape. I added a half stop of exposure, +47 to contrast, highlights -53, shadows +53, white point +1 and black point -7. White balance set to the "daylight" preset (color temp 5500). Other color adjustments included vibrance +23 and saturation +11. I wanted the sea cliffs to show detail, so I bumped up the texture and clarity sliders +43 each. I added a slight S-curve in the "curve" slider for a little more pop in the different tonal areas. In the color mixer, I added +21 to the greens, +53 to the aquas and +11 to the blues. It still needed some gentle nudging to achieve my objective of bringing the image to life while presenting a faithful representation of what I saw and felt. I don't normally fiddle around with color grading, but I experimented with it and was pleased to find more balance in the tonal ranges of land, sea and sky. The final touch was to crop to a 16:9 aspect ratio to reduce the amount of gray sky without chopping off the top of the tree on the left. In the foreground was a shrub that I just couldn't eliminate with in-camera composition. It also went away with this crop, too.

Other parts of California--like Big Sur--get more attention, but California's North Coast is a real gem that shouldn't be missed. Fall is a great time to go. I hope this image gives you a feel for what it's like.