Rolling Thunder & Hills | Ozark Mountains

🙂 Give me some love…mark this photo as one of your favorites on Flickr

“The riches he (Bilbo Baggins) had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure.” – Chapter 1, The Fellowship Of The Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien

I can just imagine Bilbo Baggins lying in the grass, dreaming about his adventures and travels from long ago. Would it be considered a faux pas if I were to do the same thing today? I imagine if I were to follow suit, people driving by would think there’s a man passed out or dead in that field.

Just for fun, one of these days I’m going to man up and lie down in an open field (preferably public land). I may get a few ticks and a couple weird looks, but I’m positive it will be worth it. Don’t you?

Now onto the photo…If you have Spotify or Last.fm handy, pull up ‘Concerning Hobbits‘ by Howard Shore and listen to it as you take in this scene.

This photo was taken on a stormy day, alongside an Ozark mountain rural road in Missouri. I was heading home, when the clouds split and the sun splashed the hillside with a vibrant glow. Anytime you’re presented with conditions like this, you stop and take a photo. That’s my motto.

I had to hurry because the clouds were low and moving swiftly. Which meant that at any moment the suns rays would be swallowed up. After grabbing a few test shots, I was able to take a breath and soak in the landscape.

Camera Settings

• Aperture Priority mode (A for Nikon users and Av for Canon users)
• Aperture set to f/16
• ISO set to 100
• Focal Length (zoom) set to 18mm

Post-processing

• Imported the photo into Lightroom
• Under the Basic tab, I brought the highlights down to -55 and increased the clarity to +10
• Under the Tone Curve tab, I upped the darks to +12 and brought the shadows down to -11
• Under the HSL tab, I increased the saturation of the blues to +24, the greens to +25 and the yellows to +16
• Under the Effects tab I added some slight vignetting by setting the amount to -29

If you happen to own a Nikon D5100, I created a tutorial which goes into a little more detail regarding the in-camera settings and functions I used for this particular photo, check it out (see all of my Nikon D5100 tips here).

FYI, the tutorial can also be applied to the D5200, D3100 and D3200. For more tips and tricks, check out my website CameraTips.com. Until next time…happy shooting!