I have been in a creative hole during the last week and as a result haven't made any new photos. It was hot and humid again and maybe it is just the weather that kept me from going outside and explore things in nature or somewhere else. Coincidently "The Grit", a podcast from Kelby Media Group that I download and watch every week, had as their discussion topic "When Inspiration Fails You" (episode 63). Couldn't be a better time for me to watch what other photographers had to say about this. Well, I'm not alone. It seems that even some of the most creative professional photographers have sometimes a period without any inspiration. Check it out here if you like: http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/
Not having any new images helped me to work on the backlog I have with my catalog. I made a lot of clicks this year already but the busy travel schedule recently prevented me from working on some of the pictures.
This photo is still from last Sunday. It was taken near the Mines of Spain, a nature area south of Dubuque, IA. I underexposed it by one stop in order to catch the sun rays coming through the clouds. I had to bring back carefully some of the light in the foreground in Lightroom because I did not have any of the split grade ND filters with me. I could have done more for the detail but I wanted to give the scene a "painting-like" feeling. I applied my changes, including the usual sharpening, very subtle in order to get the result I had envisioned.