Photography Tutorial · 2017-11-05
Arctic Paradise - Some New Greenland Photos, Shooting Ideas, and Wallpaper Downloads
Thomas has been "off the grid" for nearly seven weeks recently, because I went trekking in the wilderness of Greenland.
In today's article, Thomas will share some finished new photos of Greenland and the shooting ideas behind them, and there is a bonus at the end - large wallpaper downloads!
1. "Witnessing a Miracle" (《见证奇迹》)
f/6.3, ISO 400, 1/60s, 8-frame 16mm stitched panorama
That afternoon the entire fjord was covered in dark clouds, but my teammate Grove and I still decided to gamble on the weather and climbed 600 meters up to wait for the sunset.
The clouds were so heavy and thick all evening that the sun never showed a trace. However, we noticed a tiny gap between the clouds and the sea level far off at the horizon; if the west looked similar, then as the sun set into that gap, there might be a spectacular afterglow.
Sure enough, as the sun set, the distant clouds and peaks slowly turned red and eventually blazed as if on fire, letting us witness a miracle that lasted only five short minutes yet was utterly magnificent.
Many friends are curious how this kind of selfie stitched panorama with a person in it works. The panorama and the selfie need to be shot separately and then combined later with masks.
Because the golden hour passes in a flash, you need to shoot the selfie first, while the clouds are just starting to change color.
For Nikon users, the approach is to set the camera to interval shooting mode, taking a shot every 10 seconds, for example. Then we run to the selfie spot and strike various poses. Finally we go back and pick the most satisfying frame from all the continuously shot photos.
After that, the magical moment arrives, and this is when we shoot the panorama. This set was shot at the 16mm end of a Nikon 14-24mm lens. Because the light changes very quickly, multi-row stitching with a medium focal length was out of the question.
However, since I was shooting wide angle, I kept the overlap between frames fairly high, generally between 50% and 70%, so that distortion would be smaller when stitching.
After the panorama is stitched in post, import the photo with the person, align it manually, and recombine them with a mask. Since the person was really standing there and the time gap was not long, the merge is very simple, and the light and perspective in the final image look natural.
Finally, using the hue/saturation tool combined with a mask, I changed the blue jacket to red, making the person stand out more in the scene and echoing the red of the fiery clouds.
2. "The Realm of the Gods" (《众神之界》)
f/6.3, ISO 1600, 25s, 12-frame 14mm stitched panorama
This was the most dreamlike night during my two months of trekking and exploring in Greenland.
It had been raining for two straight days, and I was going stir-crazy in my tent. Suddenly a beam of moonlight struck the tent, startling me into rushing outside to look. After the storm, the clouds had parted, and the towering rock faces of the distant peaks, all covered in fresh snow, sparkled in the moonlight as if the gods had descended upon the earth.
Without time to tidy up, I grabbed my tripod and camera and rushed to the small river, shooting until moonset. Having spent four straight hours by the river, I was nearly frozen stiff and was about to head back to camp to rest.
Just then, an even more stunning scene unfolded: the auroras filled the sky, dancing and erupting, with countless green arches stretching from the northeast to the southwest across the sky. Only a two-row, 12-frame vertical panorama with the 14mm wide-angle lens could record this incredibly awe-inspiring celestial display!
3. "The Golden Giant Tower" (《金色巨塔》)
f/20, ISO 50, 1.6s, single 14mm shot
Deep in the fjords of Arctic Greenland, thousands of years of glacial geological movement have carved countless vertical giants with thousand-meter drops. As the sun sets in the west, these massive rocks are bathed in brilliant golden light.
In composing the shot, I included some small flowers by the river, which serve both as a foreground to enhance layering and as leading lines drawing the eye toward the central peak.
Including the peaks on both sides was a similar consideration: the two peaks form a V shape that guides the eye to the core subject in the middle.
After several attempts, I settled on a 1.6-second exposure, which stretches the water into silky strands without fogging it and losing detail. There was almost no wind that day, so the foreground flowers did not need a separate short-shutter shot.
Because this trip required a lot of trekking, I gave up bringing my Haida 150mm filter system. To achieve the 1.6-second exposure, I had to drop the ISO to its minimum of 50 and open the aperture to f/20.
The image above is the straight-out-of-camera original. You can see that in post-processing, I greatly boosted the cyan tones in the photo to create a warm-cool contrast with the orange peaks. Since the clouds were a blank white expanse and not impressive, I applied a gradient in ACR to darken the upper part of the sky.
4. "The Mysterious Spring" (《神秘泉》)
f/16, ISO 50, 1.3s, 6-frame 14mm stitched panorama
In southern Greenland, a mysterious waterfall hidden deep among the rocks overlooks a fjord dotted with floating ice.
This spot was discovered by Dutch landscape photographer Max Rive; the image below is Max Rive's version with the aurora at moonset from this location. I, on the other hand, chose to come here before sunrise to shoot the stunning morning glow and the red mountains at sunrise.
5. "Greenland from the Air"
On this Greenland shoot, besides extensively using my main camera, the Nikon D750, the DJI Mavic Pro drone also proved its worth.
The DJI Mavic Pro combines portability with image quality and is almost the only choice for outdoor shooting. It can take me to angles a DSLR can never reach, letting me look down on magnificent scenery from the air.
Because the drone has a 500-meter relative altitude limit, I usually climb to a mountain around 600 meters high before launching the drone, which lets it reach an altitude of about 1,100 meters and shoot level with the peaks.
f/2.2, ISO 100, 1/400s, 20-frame (2 rows) 26mm stitched panorama
f/2.2, ISO 100, 1/4000s, 7-frame 26mm stitched panorama
f/2.2, ISO 100, 1/160s, 20-frame (2 rows) 26mm stitched panorama
6. "Greenland Aurora"
In Greenland, I was fortunate to see for the first time auroras dancing across the entire sky. Because the intensity of the aurora is unpredictable - sometimes a 30-second exposure yields only a bit of green, while other times a 3-second exposure overexposes - you need to check your photos immediately after shooting and adjust the exposure parameters at any time.
f/4, ISO 1600, 4s, 4-frame 14mm stitched panorama
f4 ISO1000 30s 16mm
Aurora shot as a single frame; foreground from a 9-frame mean stack for noise reduction
Aurora: f/2.8, ISO 1600, 10s, 14mm, shot after moonset
Foreground (including the tent): f/4, ISO 800, 10s, 14mm, shot before moonset
Because the aurora was weak - too faint to show well while the moon was up, while the foreground was pitch black after moonset - I used the time-blending technique: keeping the tripod and framing fixed, I shot the foreground before moonset and the aurora after moonset, then merged the two frames with a mask in post.
7. "Greenland's Floating Ice"
One of Greenland's hallmarks is the giant icebergs floating on the sea. Although the southern fjords have fewer icebergs than Disko Bay in the west, they are still spectacular.
f/6.3, ISO 200, 1/250s, single 52mm shot, Haida polarizer
f/8, ISO 200, 1/200s, single 120mm shot, Haida polarizer
8. "The Dreamlike 'Straw Hat Mountain'"
f7.1 ISO3200 30s 14mm
When people think of Greenland, they always imagine the endless white ice sheet. In fact, southern Greenland is home to some of the world's most spectacular fjord peak clusters. The peaks here have strange shapes - like this Greenland version of the "straw hat mountain."
9. "The Perfect Reflection"
f8 ISO200 1/25s 14mm
In autumn, Greenland's weather changes by the day, and you can witness sunshine, rain, snow, clouds, and auroras all in turn. I stayed at this camp for six days and witnessed countless breathtaking moments around these vertical giants.
10. "Explorers of the Far North"
f/2.2, ISO 100, 1/300s, 8-frame stitch with DJI Mavic Pro
f/16, ISO 250, 1/200s, 7-frame 14mm stitch with D750
My teammate and I explored a great many new locations and compositions in Greenland this time. After careful planning on Google Maps, we decided to land on the west side of this uninhabited islet and spent two days trekking over mountains before reaching the cliff area on the islet's east side.
This place was even more stunning than expected - glaciers, cliffs, fjords, clouds, and floating ice formed a breathtaking tableau. This is a paradise lost in the far northern wilderness, nature's finest gift to explorers!
Image 1 shows the islet at sunset, and image 2 shows the scene at sunrise.
There are still more Greenland photos waiting to be processed; Thomas will gradually post them to my Tuchong homepage. Feel free to click "Read the Original," or visit https://thomaskksj.tuchong.com/ to follow!
You may also be interested:
Although the southern fjords of Greenland boast world-class scenery, they remain little known, and there is almost no information about them on the English-speaking internet.
Next year, Max Rive and Thomas have carefully designed a 10-day photo itinerary through Greenland's southern fjords for Chinese travelers. Three days are spent in hotels, while the remaining seven days are camping in the wilderness - conditions are quite tough.
However, speedboats transport you to each camp, so there is no need for heavy-loaded trekking like Thomas's (three optional high viewpoints require a light hike, but you can also choose to shoot near the lower camps), and Chinese food as well as Chinese-language pre- and post-production guidance are provided. The cost is around 30,000 yuan (not including airfare).
