Good night Sun, Good evening Moon

Charles Baudelaire once wrote:

“This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change beds; one man would like to suffer in front of the stove, and another believes that he would recover his health beside the window.
It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not, and this question of removal is one which I discuss incessantly with my soul.”

Being eternally restless I have this ongoing conversation with my soul and it appears I need to change hospital beds with increasing rate. I am aching to go to on my next photo trip. Back to the heat, the outback, the dust and the untouched magical landscapes. I live for capturing those moments. Copenhagen is familiar and thus boring presently but can fortunately still surprise me. Friday night Nature the Artist treated me to this special sunset and moonrise, click to see large size:

Click to see large size on my gallery! Copyright Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Moonrise & Sunset at Lake Peblinge
Copyright Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

This Moonrise & Sunset was a bit of a lucky punch but then luck favours the prepared. Circling the lake half an hour before sunset listening to music with my head in the clouds; suddenly all the elements in the composition come together and my internal “photo!” critical event is trapped (perhaps I’ve worked in IT for too long). I setup shop and hope the clouds stay around, pick up colour and please do not block the moon. Nature was kind to me letting all the elements stay in place and gently lit the scene with delicate soft light and dusty colours. The composition is my classic style ‘I shoot landscapes even in a city; I ignore that they are buildings instead of rocks’.

Less is more and vertical stitching

This is one of those shoots where Nature did all the work. The RAW files are perfect, I only set the white balance I wanted and added some slight saturation. I developed the RAW files in Lightroom 2.0 and used my normal PTgui stitching workflow for this – see tutorial – with one difference. This photo is 4 horizontal shots stitched vertically so for projection you must choose ‘Transverse Cylindrical”. I lightened the shadows slightly in Photoshop and created a vignette.

Attempting to attract the eyes of people & potential customers on the web using small images on a web page means most of us are sometimes guilty of over saturating shots. Colours are the easiest way to attract eyes to a small thumbnail so we sometimes go to 11 with the colour volume. In this case I wanted to preserve the very delicate soft subtle light and colours so I kept the volume down so to speak. It may appear understated on screen but in a large print this is a gorgeous look. Super saturated sRGB colours do not always transfer well or look natural in CMYK so it’s a good idea to keep the volume down a bit. Sometimes more is more but often less is more!

…17 days to take off…

9 Comments on “Good night Sun, Good evening Moon”

  1. Its a stunning shot .I think all artists are the same Flemming.Always restless.Always yearning for some new adventure.Every time I get back home within a couple of months I get bored here, and I am ready to go again.I had decided to go up north instead I am sitting in India at the moment where I am posting from.How long before you go now?

  2. Thanks very much Birte! I like your India shots on Pbase. So you’re not doing Cape York this year? You’re right about the restlessness, I feel exactly like you do. Yesterday was 17 days, so must be 16 days today to take off 😀

    Dylan, no not going to Perth this time, will have to catch up with the Perth Crew next time.

  3. Dude, love the quote. Wonder where you stumbled upon it?
    The photo is also brilliant, but what really gets me is to picture you just wandering around the Lakes, iPodded and with your head in the clouds, waiting for the right moment to arise….
    I'm over here by the stove and your place by the window sure looks good….or is it the other way around….;-)

  4. Mate, I was reading Baudelaire's poems of course! No, it's a quote featured in one or several of Bruce Chatwin's books. I often wander around like that when I'm shooting, iPodded and head in my clouds. Removes me completely from this world except for visual input so I shoot better photos.

  5. Love this shot!
    For me this is my second fav of yours, still can't go past that Devils Marbles shot! But it's pretty damn close. Even without the moon I thought it was amazing. Then seeing it enlarged and finding the moon jump out at you was stunning. It's only when you look close on the thumbnail you can really see it.

    The Ipod technique must be working!! 🙂

Leave a Reply to Stephen WilliamsCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.