by Zack Schnepf

I get one request more than any other, to see what my photos look like before and after I process them.  I found this incredibly helpful myself when I was starting out in photography.  I’ve done this before and I think I will make it a regular series here.  The following are a selection of images that I think turned out well and capture my experience in the field.  The top photo of each set is the final master image.

This first set of images is from one of the most amazing mornings I’ve ever spent in the field.  Sean and I set out several hours before first light in the pitch black, frigid, icy morning.  This was a morning we had hoped to see while on our trip.  It’s very rare to get the first snow during peak fall color.  Sean and I had hoped for such conditions somewhere on our trip, but knew the chances were very low to witness such an event.  We were extremely fortunate to be able realize our dream of capturing just such an event.  This was one of my favorite moments during that morning.  The dynamic range was too much even for the Sony A7r.  To overcome the limitations of the camera I captured 3 different exposures capturing all of the tonal information.  Using my tonality control techniques with the aid of Tony Kuyper’s actions and action panel I was able to blend the exposures together in photoshop to produce the final image.  Thanks again to Raynor Czerwinski for sharing his local knowledge of this spot with us.  If you find yourself in Crested Butte, be sure to visit him and his wife Susan at the John Ingram Fine Art Gallery.

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This set of images is from another location from my trip to Colorado this fall with good friend Sean Bagshaw.  This is Chimney rock and Courthouse Mountain.  On the evening we photographed here we were fortunate to witness some spectacular light and atmosphere.  I processed this again using my tonality control techniques with the aid of Tony Kuyper’s actions and panel.  Each image always presents it’s own challenges.  In this case I used 3 separate exposures and double processed one of them for a total of 4 exposures.  This allowed me to really target each tonality zone to achieve the look and feel that captured the experience for me.

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This set of images is from another spectacular evening from the Colorado trip.  This storm rolled in quickly spoiling the sunset I had in mind and replacing it with something so much better.  Sean and I had to make a split second decision to abandon our current location and rush to another location we had scouted earlier.  It was spectacular, but the camera was not capturing what I was seeing.  Again, I used my tonality control techniques with the aid of Tony Kuyper’s actions and panel to bring the drama back into this image.  The final image captures my experience extremely well.

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For all these images I was using my tonality control techniques and Tony’s action panel.  For more information about my video, or to purchase a copy visit the video page on my site:  http://www.zschnepf.com/Other/Videos2

I’m currently producing a video on how I use Tony’s panel with my techniques.  It will be available in the next few months.
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