The Valley of Death – Redux by Marsel van Oosten

The Valley of Death – Redux by Marsel van Oosten

Namibia Untamed
Photography workshop with Ryan Dyar
17 June – 1 July 2017
www.squiver.com Here’s another shot from Deadvlei, Namibia, that I shot many years ago and recently reprocessed. Just after I posted the reworked version of this image here, I got a print request for another. Not surprisingly, the same thing happened: I searched for the file, opened it in Photoshop to resize and sharpen it, but never actually got that far. Upon closer inspection of the file, I noticed some things that I had previously overlooked. They were small details, but enough to make me decide to start again from scratch. I kept the ‘old’ file open in PS as an example, and started working on the original NEF in Lightroom. That’s where I made most of the changes, and then I did the fine tuning in PS. What has changed? I reworked the sky/dense fog, especially where it creeps over the dunes in the background, and I did some work on the blacks to get better definition in there. I also managed to get much more of the original crispness back – not sure how I screwed that up back then. I still like the overall mood and color balance, so I didn’t change much there. Again, this just proves how our skills evolve and so do our taste and vision. I really like this ongoing creative process where no piece is ever truly finished nor perfect. As a matter of fact, each time I’ve reworked an older shot, I want to find myself some more. But that would be unfair to the new and still completely unprocessed images that are eagerly awaiting their moment of glory 🙂 – – – Our Namibia tours usually fill up years in advance, so we decided to add an extra one for 2017 and 2018. Those tours will be led by one of the finest landscape photographers here on 500px and beyond: Ryan Dyar. Ryan is not only a great guy to travel with, he is also a post-processing wizard, and he will show you a bunch of tricks to get the most out of your images. If you want to visit Namibia, look no further. We were the world’s first company to offer photography tours to Namibia, and there is no better organized Namibia tour out there. Also, we are still the only company that offers microlight flights over the famous Namibian sand dunes, which happens to be the best way to do aerial photography, and also by far the most fun. We end the tour with a few days of serious safari in one of the best and most productive wildlife areas in Namibia – better than Etosha! If you’re interested in joining Ryan to Namibia, please check out our website for more information, images, video clips, and a very detailed tour PDF: www.squiver.com Hope to see you there! Marsel WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER ©2016 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

Marsel van Oosten: Photos