When it started raining the main shot I was really thinking of and hoping for was a full reflection shot of Spaceship Earth. Therefore I was very happy when I found several puddles in front of Spaceship Earth that would let me get the shot I wanted. The previous shot I posted with the nearly full Spaceship Earth reflection and monorail was technically more difficult but there’s something about the simplicity of this reflection shot that draws me to it more. I ultimately really like both shots but if I had to choose one to put in a portfolio I think this is the one I’d choose.
Shooting/Editing Reflecting on Spaceship Earth
This was shot with the Nikon D810 and Nikon 14-24 2.8. It was a 5 shot bracket blended in Photomatix. I did do something slightly different for the setup of this shot however. I initially tried a frame with the camera laying in the water and the lens resting on the ground. This pointed the camera more towards the ground and while the shot wasn’t bad I thought it could be a bit better. I ended up taking a small canister of lip Vaseline I carry with me and resting the lens on the front of this. This lifted the lens about 1/2 an inch and though this might not seem like much it got rid of the down shooting look that I was getting without it. Another slightly unique twist on this shot came with the editing. Often when I color balance I will color balance the sky and foreground separately. In this case I did a slight twist on that by color balancing the sky but then only color balancing part of the foreground. I excluded all of Spaceship Earth, trees, and Leave a Legacy including their reflections color balancing just the ground surrounding them to match the sky color balance.
