Class assignment waterfall shot

[John Platt]

Unamed little falls in Northern California. This image was made for a composition class and has to fit the 4x6 format. We were trying to illustrate triangles and curves.

1 sec
f22
24mm Nikon 2.8
-4/5 ev
Polarizer
tripod
release

Painted the bush with a HH flashlight.


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4939224552_c851621712_b.jpg

[Dave Mills]

Hi John, I like the way you positioned yourself to get the view of the curve.
I noticed a few things. First, there is a heavy magenta caste to the image which I removed. I added a bit of S/H to give more definition to the water which is a bit silky for my taste. I also darkened the large rock on the left which had a bright sheen.(very often you can eliminate that by using a polarizer) I cropped a bit off the top to tighten up the image and desaturated the colors a bit.

[John Platt]

Thanks for the feedback, I agree with the magenta cast, although I did not see it before. I chose "cloudy" as the white balance, that warmed things up quite a bit. I tried to make the water silky, so I have to disagree there, in fact if I had a ND filter with me I would have softened even more!

I wanted to crop but we have to stick to 4x6 for the class. In fact we are supposed to present the full frame.

Thanks again, I think I will make the color change before I print it and turn it in.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey John,
Agree with Dave that the colors are a bit over the top.....so good call there. I often like really long SS myself.....but you do have to be careful there. Many times the look of the water depends entirely of the flow rate. Same scene can have dramatic differences in the way it looks....just because of the water flow rate! I'm OK with this as presented...ther is a bit of definition in the flow.....watch the UR flow......but I do recommend you bracket your SS.....just for that reason! Something to keep in mind for the next time out.

[John Platt]

Thanks Roman, I also agree with Dave. I wish I could crop it, but that would not be fair to the other class attendees, we decided as a group on FF 4x6 shots and to try our best to compose in the viewfinder.

I learned that I now depend upon being able to rotate my images WAY too much. I have gotten a little lazy just shooting a little looser and fixing things later.

[Robert Amoruso]

John,

I do understand your instructors want to get his students to frame better in camera then to crop latter - it is good practice to do that. I have students that take my bird photography workshops that tell me about landscape classes they take where they are told the have to compose in camera and can never crop and to do so shows a failing in the field.

Not saying that is the case here but do ever think like that. Many times I compose the get as close to the comp I want and then complete my vision at the computer buy doing what I call my "creative crop".

Dave was right on with the color tweaks. Thanks for posting and looking forward to more of your work.