silhouette Archives - Rachel Cohen Photography

“The Reckoning in Gray”

January 26, 2016 by Rachel

This past autumn during a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula I had the opportunity to witness one really beautiful afternoon and a stunning sunset in Marquette. The rest of my days in the UP. this time were filled with lots of rain, fog and clouds.
This was the one and only afternoon that I witnessed the sky change dramatically every few minutes! The clouds split the sky into darkness and light. The title of The Reckoning felt just right for this image!
For fun, I processed it in both color and black and white. The monochrome version has a much more dramatic feel to it, while the blue hues create a more peaceful scene. I hope you enjoy both.

"The Reckoning in Blue" Beautiful blues and silhouette on Lake Superior as sunset approaches. — “The Reckoning in Blue”
Beautiful blues and silhouette on Lake Superior as sunset approaches.

As with almost all of my images they can be purchased as beautiful prints or canvas, and are available for licensing as well. For purchasing info click here

Thanks for stopping by!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Long Sunset”

November 13, 2014October 5, 2013 by Rachel

Hi everyone, it’s been a busy past few weeks for me, so now that I have a breather, I thought I’d sit down a write a post. Today I was processing some images. I decided just for fun, to take one unedited image and process it 3 different ways just to change it up a slight bit.

The first photo is the unedited version. This was a quick grab for me. I was trying to find a spot a along Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, that had a view to the west. When I finally found it, the sun was just about to set completely. I jumped out of the car and ran towards the water. I only got in a few shots before the sun was gone!

The colors did continue to become more and more beautiful though, as they went through their changes moving into the night!

That of course is not what this post is about. It’s about one image and a little bit of play.

You’ll notice the colors here are nice, but not very bright. The foreground is pretty dark, and there were some small rocks in the shallow parts of the water.

Unedited version of “Long Sunset”

In this next image I decided to go with a bit of a more purple cast. I used a combination of Lightroom , and Nik Color Efex Pro to make these changes in this and in the other two images. The changes were very simple, so I won’t go into detail. This post is more about the images themselves and not how they got that way.

Here, you’ll notice more of a warm cast, I’d call peach. I also removed the small rocks in the foreground.

Finally in this last image I went a bit wild, and brought out a lot of warmth and a bright yellow cast. I also removed some of the noise in this one, even though I had already taken some out by the original processing in Nik. In my opinion this one, instead of being a sunset, it seemed to take on the appearance of a sunrise by lightening up the foreground more, and the intense hues I gave it. See if it makes you feel that way too.

Obviously this isn’t a “How to”, but I thought it might be fun to just take a simple sunset, and see where you could go with it, without going totally out of the realm of reality.

Of course for the person that doesn’t believe in any processing at all, this is already way over the top! 😉

I hope you enjoyed this post, and enjoyed the slight difference in each image. Have a great weekend everyone!! 🙂

“The Last Goodbye”

May 13, 2013 by Rachel

On a recent visit to Shenandoah National Park, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I had really wanted the ability to get a sunset before leaving the area. The weather hadn’t been cooperating for most of the time I was there. I had one day of lovely weather, but was busy and couldn’t be in the mountains. After that it rained cats and dogs for a few days, and In addition to that, the mountains were socked in with a thick heavy fog.
On my last day there, I decided to head up into the mountains one more time, even though it was raining in Winchester and Front Royal, plus the mountains were still having quite a bit of fog.
I drove quite a ways in and amazingly started to see some clearing happening. I even got to see a rainbow, which made me pretty happy, which I’ll explain in a minute.
During the time of sunset, I captured many images, but this one has to be the most colorful of the group! Not the best, but the most brilliant.
I call it “The Last Goodbye” for two reasons. One is that it was my last day there, and had to head out of town early the next morning.
The other reason was a much more import one. My whole reason for being in the area to begin with.
My father had passed away, just a few days before this was taken. He suffered a series of massive heart attacks. While I was in the area I got some time to myself and spent it in the Blue Ridge.
On my last night there I went up into the mountains to what was his favorite spot, so that I could say a quiet goodbye, and hopefully catch a sunset. What I got was more than I had hoped for.
I was blessed with clearing skies, a rainbow, and a vibrant sunset.
That was my very Last Goodbye to a wonderful man who during his lifetime had taught me the love and respect of nature, and the the pure joy of photographing that beauty!!

“My Ten Favorite Images from 2012”

December 19, 2012 by Rachel

This year has be an interesting one for me. I had the chance to do more travelling than usual, which gave me many more photographic opportunities. Sometimes though it’s the images you take that are close to home that you end up liking the best. Here are ten images mostly from the late summer through autumn that I like the best. I have many more that I could say the same for, but for the sake of brevity I will limit it to Ten. The images are in no particular order. Enjoy!

A stormy day on Lake Michigan at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore.

Upper Tahquamenon Falls in early autumn.
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula. — Upper Tahquamenon Falls in early autumn.
In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

A stormy windy day on Lake Michigan in the Upper Peninsula.

Loving the beauty of early autumn on a scenic rural road in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Beautiful reflections along an inland lake.

Beautiful Arch Rock on Mackinac Island.
Girls down below are writing messages with rocks.

Shimmering sunrise on Lake Huron with Mackinac Island in silhouette.

Gorgeous fall foliage on a beautiful winding rural road.

Loving the rails on a stormy autumn day.

Gazing across one lake, through fall foliage, over Lake Superior, and onto Canada.

After going through so many images, it was really difficult to decide, and had to leave out many that I would have liked to include. You can find links on this blog to my sites and where to view more images.
Best wishes to everyone, both now and in the coming year!!!