What's behind your photo

When walking along the streets of a home city or any other place on the Earth, there's always something that makes us take a camera and press the shutter. We asked Skylum friends to share their thoughts about their best photos and what stands behind these amazing shots. Just take a look below. If you want tp become a part of Skylum family, send us your photos and stories to [email protected].

Trebor Ydrah

The photo was taken with my iPhone 5c a few years back. As one can imagine, taken with the iPhone 5 on a rainy day, the photo was quite underexposed. Using Intensify Pro (there was no extension to iPhoto in 2014), I was able to bring the nice details in the wet cobblestones, as well as more clarity to the gawkers wandering in this small artists street in Quebec.

Amazing what Intensify can do, even with the little 8 megapixels camera and smaller image sensor of the iPhone 5c.Photo by Trebor Ydrah

Sandi Sullivan

Just happened to look out my window and saw this Solitary Sandpiper in my tiny pond, which is very unusual. Grabbed my camera and ran outside and was able to get this shot before it flew off. Intensify.Photo by Sandi Sullivan

Maricel Quesada

I am originally from Costa Rica, my husband and I moved to the Bay Area four years ago with our dog Sam and we have been going to South Lake Tahoe almost every year during the end summer, around the end of September when the weather is nice, it is not too hot but it is also not so cold. We loved it because we could take Sam off-leash in many trails, he loved it. Unfortunately we lost him last year so we decided not to visit Tahoe that year.

Some friends came to visit from Costa Rica this January and they wanted to go see the snow (there is no snow in Costa Rica, only rain and sunshine) so we decided to take them to Tahoe, that weekend the weather was bad, it rained a lot and also snowed a lot, but there was something good about it, the scenery was unbelievable.

We went to Eagle Falls a place we always visit during summer, we were not sure if we could go in because it the parking lot was closed and it was full of snow, but we encounter this old lady who was coming down from the hike and she said it was perfectly fine at least all they way up to the bridge, so off we went, it was amazing to find the falls full of water, we have never seen them like that, they are usually dry by the end of the summer.

Once we got to the bridge my friends started playing with snow balls, me instead I set up my tripod, my camera, took a few test shots and then put on my 10 stop ND filter to take a long exposure shot of the falls and the river. I love the contrast of the white snow, the water, the red trees and the green of the big trees.

It was a great day, lots of fun!Photo by Maricel Quesada

Swapan Jha

I took this shot around 11pm in downtown Barcelona next to Palau de la Musica. Barcelona is one of my favorite cities in the world. After having dinner with a friend of mine, we started walking and I was looking for a location to take a long exposure for a B&W shot.

Amazing architecture of Palau de la Musica on the right and the leading lines along with beautiful lamps really made the shot. I used Sony A7R with 24-70mm Sony lens on a tripod. Initial processing in LRCC and the final B&W done in Tonality CK.Photo by Swapan Jha

John Woods

Sparks Lake is a the bottom of MT Batchelor in Oregon, from there you can see the three Sisters mountain peaks, Faith, Hope and Charity. We spent the day shooting pictures, kayaking and fishing. We got our chairs, goose down lap robes and waited fort he sun to set over Sparks Lake and the Sisters. The first photo is my original photo, the second is the same photograph, where I used Aurora to bring out the colors and the NoiselessCK filter to remove the noise from the sky. I am very pleased with the results.Photo by John Woods

Marianne Robson

Touched by Light. This weathered statue is perched on a wall above an outdoor ornament shop on Waltham Street in Christchurch, New Zealand... Moody skies formed the perfect backdrop on a rather chilly autumn day in the Southern Hemisphere... Photo by Marianne Robson