Jacob Merrick Smith

I hiked to the peak of Angels Landing, a steep and dangerous hike that took a lot out of me. Feeling the sense of accomplishment throughout me I started my decent. One of the most difficult things about shooting in a canyon is light. It is extremely challenging to try and balance all of your tones and exposures while shooting in a canyon. So I figured, why not use it to my advantage? I tried to underexpose slightly to keep some detail in the heavily lit area in the background, while trying to not keep my foreground too lost in shadows. Doing this I was able to maintain my colors in my foreground, my greens and reds were there but they needed more "pop". Starting with the traditional shadows then highlight adjustments I was on my way. Then adjusting my curves in Lightroom, along with saturating specific colors (like the red in the rocks from iron deposits). Once my foreground was to my liking with all of the adjustments, I then added a graduated filter to the top of the image to darken it, then brushing in the end of canyon down to the trees to make it a consistent look. Adjusting brushstrokes and different properties to give me my desired look, I was ready to export my final product, an extremely "in your face and full of color image"