Over The Edge

[Andrew McLachlan]

Here is another view of Grindstone Falls, found along the Niagara Escarpment near Hamilton, Ontario that I shot in the spring. On this day there was too much mist to shoot from below the falls so I went up above the falls and stood in the river at the edge of the cascade for a different perspective. I would have like to include more on the left, but a big tree was not making that happen very well. I shot many variations from atop the falls in both vertical and horizontal orientations. When reviewing the images this one caught my eye as the preferred one. What do you think?

Nikon D200
Nikon 12-24mm lens @ 12mm
Nikon Polarizer
ISO 100
f16 @ 10 seconds (it was a dark, rainy morning)

Look forward to comments.

98311

[Dave Mills]

Hi Andrew, I like your perspective with the feeling of peering over the falls. This is not an easy one for me to critique. I have looked at it for awhile and feel that the foreground oof water is so dominant and soft it has a tendancy to hold my eye. While I see some detail in the flow the end of it is not that clearly defined. If you have the same image with the water sharper in the fg I would like to see it....

[Robert Amoruso]

I would agree with Dave here, FG sharpness was needed. A tilt-shift lens might have been the only way to get this from this vantage. Backing up and framing larger would give more DOF and you could crop to this later is another option.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Andrew,
This is a tough one for me too as i like the silkiness of the water in most of it......but the LLC is a bit too dominant for me too. Parhaps seeing if you can bring out any more detail in there? I like the lines too in most of it.....just trying to figure out the LLC!
I'll have to wait till I get back from Tanzania if you post more and won't be able to chime in until the 29th.

[Brendan Dozier]

Really like the interesting perspective on this and softness to water, Andrew. Agree about having more sharpness to FG. Nice work!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks guys for the comments. I'll take a look at my other comps to see if I have some with sharper foreground, but it was a very dark morning so all exposures were rather long. I like Robert's suggestion for a tilt-shift lens. Perhaps on my next waterfall shoot I will consider renting a tilt-shift for a day or two. Thanks again.

Roman, hope you have a great trip!

[Rachel Hollander]

Andrew - I like your experiments of shooting from the top of the falls and the blurred water. I see what the others are saying. Another possibility is to crop some more from the lhs to the small rock so that the falls lead right to the vertical edge of the stream (you might need to take a little from the top too for balance).

TFS,
Rachel