I may have mentioned an issue I deal with each summer, at least for the past few years, when capturing sunset images from the west facing bank of our lake cabin in northern Wisconsin. Our cabin neighbors a couple doors to the north have this round “raft” which resembles a giant inner tube anchored a ways out in the lake. Their kids and grandkids love it and spend the day swimming out to it, sunning themselves for awhile, then jumping off and heading back to shore. This is repeated multiple times a day, sometimes even including the dog. But as evening draws near and I start thinking of what the sunset will look like, that raft is still there, right in my line of sight to the setting sun. One recent evening I took this shot just to prove to show people my frustration with this raft.
(North) Sand Lake Sunset with Geese, and raft
Sometimes I have attempted to save a great sunset by Photoshopping the raft out, but more often than not what is left is an undesireable blob where the raft had been. On another recent occasion the wind and clouds presented me with a beautiful sunset, but there was that raft, right in the middle of the frame.
(North) Sand Lake Sunset, with raft
I tried turning my camera to the left (south) to get the raft out of the field of the 35mm lens I had mounted on my Nikon D810. This produced a nice image, without the raft, but the sunset was no longer the main focus of the shot.
(North) Sand Lake Sunset, camera moved to the left to avoid raft
When turning the camera is not an option, another technique I have tried is intentional camera movement (ICM) to blur objects in the frame so they are no longer recognizable. This also has the effect of blurring the entire scene, especially sunsets, and giving it an almost watercolor-like rendition. In the two images below you can barely make out the blurred outlines of the raft.
(North) Sand Lake Sunset, The Coming Darkness
(North) Sand Lake Sunset, Midnight Run
I have similar images framed and hanging on my walls. Printing the images on Arches Watercolor paper accentuates the watercolor effect even more. This is my preferred paper for printing these intentionally blurred images.
DavidSuessImages 