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This time we visited Hald Ruin (Hald Ege Ruin). The ruins still feature remains of basement vaults and parts of the castle entrance with gun slits for guns and bearings for shafts for two drawbridges. The castle dates back from 1528 and are freely accessible. The castle tower is a later addition from the 1800. The castle ruin is situated on a small peninsula in Hald Lake just south from Viborg.

I knew that colors wasn’t going to be lush, the snow had covered everything not many days ago. Thick clouds gave a very uninteresting sky, but at the same time a very eve light. I knew it was a day of experiment, trying to get the most out of the beautiful nature and the historic surroundings. The techniques I wanted to try out were Long Exposure Photography without ND filters, and I also wanted to develop my HDR photography, trying the technique on less obvious targets.

Arching entrance overlooking the tower

My First HDR was taken inside the basements vaults; portraying the arching entrance, with banks and tower just outside. To my horror, I noticed how the restorations has been performed, the granite ashlars was plastered with some kind of cement, looking awful fake.

The cellars from the outside was fare more compelling. Flat light and water in the air gave very shiny expression to the stones. HDR allowed me to pull details out from the arching entrances. The keep is dating back to the 1300, but is still standing strong. This photo made me make a promise to myself; I absolutely need to retake this frame in early spring. Red stones, granite boulders, framed in lush green on a blue background; maybe even taking this photo backlit.

The entrance

A path crosses a wooden bridge, and continues into the keep. It narrows between two banks and ends at the central tower. I used HDR again, allowing for a little more play in the clouds, will the barriers still is well exposed.

The Entrance seen from outside.

The original old wooden bridge is protected by a new bridge placed right on top of the old bridge. The bridge crosses a deep trench and allows easy access to the keep.

This time I used a slightly different technique. Taking the same picture 10 times and stacking them in Photoshop with mean I was able to smoothen the waters. The photo was taken with ISO 50 f/22 ½ of a sec. But by averaging out the photos the exposure is equal to 10×0.5sec at ISO 50/10. The effect is high detail and smooth water. It is a technique I used in many of the following examples. Do notice how it affect the water, much like long exposures with an ND filter.

Stacking Photos into a long exposure

Open your photos in camera raw, do your adjustments and load them all into photo shop

Next step is the stack the photos, and convert them into smart objects

Next step is to change the blend mode, to mean

Surrounds of Hald Oaks

Surrounds of Hald Oaks

Surrounds of Hald Oaks