Hill Country Sunset – Dripping Springs, Texas

Last month, I gave a lecture at PODS (Photographers of Dripping Springs), at a small hill country city 25 miles south-west of Austin. My topic? Street photography and street portraiture. Although I’m not particularly thrilled about giving presentations in front of an audience, I figured it was a great opportunity to practice my public speaking. Plus, I get to talk about a topic I know well. The group of 25 to 30 people seem to enjoy the lecture and had positive things to say.

I featured an ambitious 156 photos spread over a Powerpoint presentation with 200 slides. Luckily, I had some extra time so I didn’t have to rush through. I also showed an assortment of cameras I typically use for street photography, including the Olympus PEN-F, Canon G7X Mark II, my old Pentax Q7, and my new Fujifilm X-T10.

After the lecture, as I went to dinner with the folks, I noticed a spectacular hill country sunset. I broke my own tongue in cheek rule of not making pictures of sunsets. I choose to think of this, not as a sunset photograph, but a technical test of dynamic range.

I shot this photograph with the Fujifilm X-T10, as a single RAW and processed with Capture One. The exposure was set for the sun so that I wouldn’t blow out any highlights. It rendered the foreground almost pitch black. I was amazed at how much detail I pulled out of the shadows in post. I’m not sure how this compares with other cameras, but I think the Fuji did well on the dynamic range test.

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