Old Faithful with Edits

On a recent trip to Yellowstone National Park I made the pilgrimage to Old Faithful (can you really go there and not stop by to see the eruption??) There were alot of people there, of course, and it was a very overcast day that afternoon. I set up back away from the crowd and used my Sigma 150-600 to get the framing I wanted.

After about an hour’s wait (photography is teaching me patience) the oohs and ahhs began as the steam started to spew. I jumped behind the camera and started snapping away, changing settings, checking my work, changing more and getting nervous that I wouldn’t get an ‘amazing’ shot. Final settings on the shot I’m working with here are F-stop f/16, Exposure Time 1/125 sec, ISO speed 100, Focal length 150 mm.

When I got back to my laptop and in to Lightroom to see what I captured, I admit I was more than a little disappointed with these shots. The steam and water were hard to see with so many clouds in the sky, the people in the shot didn’t bother me, I felt like it gave some perspective, but I knew I had some work to do.

If you’ve never used Lightroom before, don’t let it scare you. Coming clean again, I admit I was intimidated by it and far more comfortable with Photoshop. But I’m a fan of the filters which I like to use as a starting point to refine colors, brightness, and so much more.

The icons on the right will pop out the windows for the filters and the editing.

Once you choose the starting preset you can refine everything from the edit panel on the right. I made adjustments to exposure and effects and was somewhat satisfied with the final product. Although it’s still not my favorite shot, it at least has definition in the steam and distance to the clouds in the background.

My goal with sharing this is to encourage the new photographer to just get out and shoot and not worry about the ‘perfect’ shot. You can have fun in Lightroom with changing colors, brightness and adding effects to make your shot something interesting or artistic (I actually love to change whole color schemes.)

Let me know what your thoughts are…do you like to go extreme with colors in Lightroom or do you prefer the traditional? Comment below or show me your capture of Old Faithful with Edits!