An adult male Cascades Frog (Rana cascadae) basks infront of wreckage of a Boeing B-17 Heavy Bomber.
Back in the early 1950s, high in the Olympic Mountains of Washington state a B-17 that was converted to conduct search and rescue clipped a ridgeline during a blizzard and crashed into the
wet valley below. Incredibly five of the eight crew members survived the ordeal. Due to the rugged terrain the wreckage was left to become part of the hills. On a backpacking adventure to the site of the crash earlier this year, I discovered that it has become home to a decent population on Cascades Frog which are only found in high elevations of the Pacific Northwest. It will always captivate me how nature reclaims our creations in unique ways.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Any
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Single. Nikon D7200, 17mm (25mm equivalent), f11.0, iso 360. handheld.
If you would like your image to be eligible for a feature on the NPN Instagram (@NaturePhotoNet), add the tag ‘ig’ and leave your Instagram username below.
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
1 Like
Joshua, this tells a fine story of nature’s recovery. You’ve juxtaposed the frog and the wreckage well. A bit of burnin-in of the brighter parts of the log and the foreground ferns would be a nice addition.
1 Like
Thank you Mark. I appreciate the tip of the burning of the brighter area. Dodging and burning is one area of processing I need to improve with. How is this edit?
Joshua, a notable improvement with better visual balance between the fog and log and the wreckage in the back. Dodging and burning using luminosity masks works much better than “standard” dodging/burning. How easy/hard it is to create luminosity masks depends on your processing software. If you’re not already using luminosity masks, check out some of the web based descriptions. If you already are using them, then I’ve said too much already…
A great story and a really cool image, Joshua. I’m glad to see the frogs taking advantage of it.
1 Like
