Suzdal Sunset

I realised that in the past few days the blog pictures have all been with a muted colour palette, with lots of white, grey and black. To “remedy” that, luckily I can always go back to one of the incredibly colourful sunsets that Russia so often rewards you with.

The picture above was taken in Suzdal, one of the oldest Russian town and a treasure trove of churches, monasteries and old buildings in general, a number of which are are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The super nice setting surely helps, but I think that in this case is the sky that really makes the picture!

Photo tip: when you shoot a high contrast scene, especially with a modern camera and in RAW format, I always suggest to “shoot for the highlights”, as if you “clip” them (that means that they come out as pure white, with no colour information” they are “gone forever”. On the other hand it has become more and more possible to “lift the shadows”, meaning that even if on the screen on the back of your camera they look too dark or even black, the sensor actually captures a ton of information and you can recover it later by lighting the areas that are too dark.  Without going into “fanboy territory”, I believe that today Nikons have a definitive edge against Canons in this respect, thanks to a larger dynamic range. On the other hand Canons are a bit better in recovering “blown” highlights.

Regarding the way I processed the image above, the sky really was amazing that evening, but I did “push” colour and contrast a bit in post, for the picture to really give back the sense of amazement I felt looking at that sunset. That, in turn, accentuated the sky’s colours reflected in the snow, as well. So I digitally “bleached” the snow a bit to bring it back to its natural white. I hope you like the result.

Would you like to discover Suzdal and the other cities of Russia’s Golden Ring? Do get in touch and we will organise the perfect trip for you!