On Monday after taking care of work, Sharon and I had a couple of moments to spend at Lake Hood to watch the comings and goings. For those who have not been to Anchorage or ventured over to Lake Hood, it is the busiest sea airbase in North America with over 82k landings each year. And being a lake, the planes that are landing are on floats. It’s just a lot of fun to watch them take off and land because they are right next to you! There were gorgeous skies the entire week we were there but the moment we had for watching the planes, the skies started to close in and it got dark. This doesn’t mean you can’t shoot.
Down below you can see what the scene really looked like. It’s not very inviting. Now I have manipulated it a little, the bottom photo doesn’t have its proper white balance so it’s really gray, but you can see how the light was not really nice. To get to the shots you see above, I simply opened up the shadows in ACR (you can see how here). With that done, a simple application of Nik Pro Contrast and I’m done. Na, not the most amazing photos I’ve taken at Lake Hood but the slight touch of snow on the mountains in the background, the skies having some texture and the gesture of the aircraft work well enough to communicate the fun that is Lake Hood. And that’s the point, to have fun even if all the elements aren’t perfect.
