Sunrise Magic – or, Aramis, my part-time Akela

We’ve experienced the most breathtaking sunrises recently and it would have been a shame not to take full advantage of them. A cloud of Saharan dust gave those yellow, red and orange tones yet another boost while adding an unfamiliar, somber hue to the landscape, as in the image below.

The fact that some of these are OOC or SOOC (photographer’s lingo for ‘straight out of camera’, meaning images left entirely unaltered and unprocessed) makes me particularly proud. I appreciate that there are different definitions of what exactly a SOOC picture is, but my interpretation is that it is an image I have not touched after releasing the shutter, apart from changing its format from RAW to jpg. This includes cropping or post-shooting adjustments through the camera.

The four pictures above came into existence when I was trying out a new lens. I think the two of us might get on, eventually. Perhaps I should keep it. Maybe.

The following two pictures are not just two versions of one and the same image that have gone through a different process of editing. They actually aren’t identical, but two separate, individual shots taken with another range of settings (admittedly, however, within a very short period of time between them). Aramis’ nose is the giveaway that we are not dealing with the same image: if the lower, brighter picture was as dark as the first, his nose would not be visible.