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Country Road in the California Hills

Posted by
Monterey John (Hollister, CA, United States) on 22 December 2008 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

Playing with Lightroom. dumped all color save blue. Sure made the sky pop.

Shooting pictures like this has the extra thrill of not knowing when some farmer in his F250 Pick-Me-Up is going to come flying over the hill and add you to the road kill. Moral of the story: Preset everything, move fast, shoot, and get off the road :)

Canon EOS REBEL XT 1/320 second F/5.6 ISO 100 21 mm

The new web site is live. http://monterey-john-photographer.com/

zahai from Berlin, Germany

Very powerful processing. Seems to tear the landscape apart.

22 Dec 2008 9:25am

Laurie from New Jersey, United States

It is a beautiful spot. Interesting result here. The sky does indeed pop.

22 Dec 2008 11:34am

Jen from Alpharetta, United States

What an amazing contrast between the hard gray road and that gorgeous blue sky!
Excellent work!

22 Dec 2008 2:10pm

Stéphane from Lyon, France

Hi John ! A very interesting shot full of contrast with a great composition ! So well done ! Bye !

22 Dec 2008 5:03pm

Bookfool from Mississippi, United States

Very cool bit of processing! And, I understand that statement about potentially becoming roadkill. We have no hard shoulders (if you're lucky to find a shoulder at all), so we do a good bit of stopping in the road. Scary, but the photography is just too freaking important not to risk your life, now and then. :)

22 Dec 2008 5:13pm

*blgroover* from Alpharetta, United States

Great shot...next time, take someone with you to yell..."CAR" so you don't end up as road kill...we wouldn't want that now would we!

22 Dec 2008 7:03pm

JJ from Jersey City, United States

WOW the sky does leap out of the shot, your doing wonderful work with lightroom so cool

22 Dec 2008 7:19pm

Stefan from Thiersee, Austria

Perfect composition, fine image!

22 Dec 2008 10:06pm

DarkElf from Perth, Australia

excellent composition! the lines formed by the convergence of the road and the surrounding hills are great to follow in and the contrast with the colour of the sky is amazing!

23 Dec 2008 12:40am

Suzanne from Huntington Bch, United States

Very interesting processing. I like it.

23 Dec 2008 12:56am

Stephen Phillips from San Francisco, United States

You had my head shaking, John - the 'dump' turned the yellow stripe black - adding to the profund sense of something very wrong here. Kind-of-a sci-fi effect...

23 Dec 2008 2:45am

Canon EOS REBEL XT
1/320 second
F/5.6
ISO 100
21 mm

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