Running... Again?

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  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 

Coastal Infrared

This turned out, unintentionally, to be infrared week here. I took this, and a bunch of other shots recently on what I'll call my second outing with the IR lens. The purpose of these shots were to experiment with the in camera white balance and ISO settings. With my lens "wide open" at 3.5 my exposure times were anywhere from 2.5 seconds (ISO 100) to .6 seconds (ISO 400) which was as high as I was willing to bump the ISO up. But I didn't think I'd be using these shots for anything more than a learning session. But when I got to working on this I was really liking the look of it. This also took a lot more work to put together. I was really happy with how the foreground and the water turned out, but I wasn't crazy about the sky. Where the clouds and the ocean meet visually was a very vague area light wise and I wanted there to be more separation between the two.

Using my latest tool in my arsenal, Topaz Labs photoFXlabs, I used layers. I converted one image into black and white then used a brush to reveal the colored parts of the photo, merged the two together and got this. I'm pretty happy with the results, for a first time attempt. I love the look of the still water, which is a result of a 2.5 second exposure, and the color the infrared gave it, this very subtle grey-green.

Coastal Infrared
An other-worldly coast

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