Monthly Archives: May 2013

Magical Shot! – Rockledge Golf Club

Golf

I love golf! I’ve been playing ever since I could remember. My dad would take me to one of the local courses near our home and we would chip and putt around the practice green for what seemed like hours. Knowing my dad’s patience is similar to my own, it was probably closer to a half hour or so, but it was fun no matter how long it was…

 

Magical Shot! – Rockledge Golf Club, West Hartford, CT

I love it when all the pieces fall into place for a photograph. In May of last year, good timing, manmade features, and the natural elements, aligned for this magical shot. I had left work a few minutes late, and if you know traffic in Hartford, that can be a major mistake most nights. The extra delay slowed me down enough to keep me in the city while the sun quickly worked its way down through the clouds and toward the horizon.

As I neared the exit for Rockledge Golf Club, I knew that I would be able to capture the dramatic sky from the parking lot overlooking the course. I hopped off the highway and as I pulled into the lot I saw the first member of this threesome teeing off. That gave me only a couple of minutes to park, hop out of the car, adjust my camera settings, and fire off three quick shots as the last player hit his ball down the fairway.

I looked at the LCD screen and knew I captured both the shot and the scenery to my liking. I was even more pleased when I looked at it on my monitor later that night, but I also knew I had quite a bit of work to do in edit. A few distracting elements needed to be removed and the guy in the middle was hunched over with his club protruding outward from his waste.  I removed the club and stood him more upright using the cloning tools in Photoshop.

Dealing with a few glare spots as well as getting the color and tone the way I wanted was a big chore as well. Shooting into the sun creates a lot of contrast, but luckily technology is offering up new and better ways to deal with that all the time and Lightroom 4 by Adobe is a perfect example. I was able to bring out the details in both the highlights and shadows by using adjustment brushes and graduated filters where needed.

Magical Shot - Rockledge Golf Club