Finding the Perfect Composition When All Seems Lost

Here’s a 20-minute video in which Serge Ramelli shows how he captured some beautiful fine-art photos of hot air balloons at a festival, even though the photo opportunities were initially looking bleak. Faced with a poor foreground full of spectators and bright yellow buses, Ramelli had to think outside the box.

Ramelli started exploring different compositions — things like looking within the crowd and framing the balloons against others — but Ramelli was still not happy with his results.

After some research on the Internet, he spotted a school far from the event that had a great view over the scene. There was a river in the foreground, complete with rising mist, and lots of trees to provide an ideal sunrise view of the balloons.

Shooting using an HDR technique, Ramelli managed to expose both the mist and the sunrise properly. With some patience, things eventually paid off as the balloons began to rise up.

But what’s really interesting about this video is seeing exactly how Ramelli processes his shots and the organization of his Lightroom workflow. The video is full of quick tips, such as highlighting all panoramic images in red so that you can quickly see all your pano images and not lose track of them.

(via Serge Ramelli via Imaging Resource)