Mud Flat, Derby, Western Australia
Phase One XF IQ4 150MP, 80mm lens, 1/2000 second @ f4, ISO 50

Tony Hewitt and I have joined Carwyn on the Light Minded Podcast (that was previous hosted by Carwyn and Christian Fletcher). We plan to release a podcast once a week, but a little shorter, around 20 minutes each. Obviously we hope they'll have the same humour and enjoyment as the earlier podcasts and gradually we'll start expanding the content to interview other photographers as well. But to get the ball rolling, it was just the three of us! (You can search for Light Minded Podcast on Google or your podcast app to find us.)

In one of the podcasts (it will probably be released mid July), after lamenting the drone that Carwyn drowned, Tony and I discussed the best seats for shooting out of a plane or a helicopter. Tony quickly said the seat up the front is the best in a helicopter because you can see where you're going and direct the pilot - and I can't argue with that. However, in terms of shooting position, I find the left back seat is easier on the body. I'm quite agile and I have taken some very satisfactory photos from all seats (except the pilot's - and no one wants me sitting there), but in the back left, my body is looking forward and my shutter finger is easily positioned. Sure, it's a bit windy back there, but I can put up with that for an hour in a heli.

But even so, no matter what seat I sit in, I always come back with some great shots AND I always wish I was in one of the other seats based on what the other photographers have taken! The grass is always greener...

This photo was shot as the tide was coming in, the water flooding the shallow mud flats. The original raw file can be seen in the before/after here:

The challenge was separating the mud above water from the muddy water surrounding it. To the naked eye, my NI (natural intelligence) was able to easily see what was exposed to the air and what was drowned, but the AI selection tools I used in Capture One struggled. There was no way I could select the whole area and the system would pick the mud for me, but by selecting one patch of mud at a time I was more successful. It was a slow and laborious process, something I actually quite enjoyed once it was done, but still a lot quicker than manually using a pen to make the selections.

In Capture One, I then played around with the colour temperature to create the beautiful blue waters I've never seen at Derby (not around the mud flats anyway), and then with the mud selection active, exposure and colour adjustments did the trick.

What might not be so apparent in the small reproduction you're looking at is the furious movement of the tides as the sea rushes over the mud flats. I've tried to enhance this by using a luminosity mask, selecting the highlights (the light brown water) and lightening and desaturating these values to enhance the white highlights. 

And as regular readers will know, I have an issue with 'white's - you can read about it in the current issue of Better Photography!