Historic View

Canon EOS 60D | EF-S 10-22 @10 | 1/4s, 1s, 4s | f/11 | ISO 100

Maryland Heights, MD. Overlooking Harpers Ferry, WV. Meeting of the Potomac and Shenadoah Rivers.

An old image of mine, initially captured at the end of June, 2011 overlooking the town of Harpers Ferry, WV from Maryland Heights, MD. I had originally edited this image as a two shot blend on an uncalibrated monitor and ended up with an image that was WAY too dark. After some time I went back and attempted a hand blended HDR version of this shot made from the bracketed images I had captured that evening (which can be seen here ). After some time I went back and realized that I was not super happy with that last version as it really lacked the pop and the impact that the scene actually had in person. I did a quick edit based off the second edit but never uploaded it. Recently I decided that I wanted to redo this shot using a blend of my current 2013 editing process as well as some hand blended HDR.

This is the result, after spending a few days on this image, trying out different things and different techniques, I am quite happy and I feel the result is a much more colorful, vibrant image that really feels more alive and better conveys just how amazing of a scene it truly was. As usual, I did my best to bring out the best of this image without going overboard and as always, comments and critiques are welcome!

And now for the story of this image...

I had attempted to photograph Harpers Ferry a week earlier and was planning to take the Maryland Heights trail. As I arrived though, the sky was overcast and it started to rain and storm just a few minutes later. I snapped a few pictures but then headed home, defeated after a long drive.

When I returned on this particular day the sky was overcast again, but I decided I was going to push on regardless. I started off on a trail that was a lot steeper than I expected. Being a bit out of shape, I was clearly not prepared for this hike, but I pushed on. Slowly I made my way up the trail until after 45 minutes I found myself about ready to turn back. I looked through a small break in the trees and saw that the clouds might part slightly, so I continued on.

I reached the overlook about half an hour before the sun set. Exhausted I sat down and started to unload my camera from my bag when I realized I had left my main memory card in my computer. Beginning to panic, I started rifling through my bag and was lucky enough to find a small 2 gig spare memory card I had borrowed from a friend for something unrelated. Excitedly I started shooting, and was able to just fill the memory card as the sun finally set and the colors faded from the sky.

Happy that I had just caught possibly the best sunset I had seen in a long time, I realized that it was now quite dark out and I did not have a flashlight with me. Using the screen of my phone as a light I started the difficult hike back to the bottom.

Enjoy!!

Edit 7-15-2013: Changed color balance slightly to warm up the image.