Rata flowers and waterfall

[chris Bycroft]

Hi

Here is one from last weekend. A river near Rotorua in New Zealand. I tried to take this in a way to get the red flowering rata and vegetation in the top half, and a blurred flowing waterfall in the background. This was a fairly long exposure taken on a tripod.

Details: Canon 30D, EFS 17-85mm 4.5-5.6 lens. ISO 100 shutter speed: 1.6 sec, f20.

It took a while to find flowers at the right place and location, this was as good as I came up with.

Cheers,

Chris

[Robert Amoruso]

Chris,

I really like the framing of the waterfall with the flowers - that works well. I like the plants coming in from the lower right corner as they help to strengthen the framing affect and if not there, would unbalance the image and allow the eye to stray. Compositionally, the image is well designed. The falls in the lower third and the flowers in the upper third.

The falls look overexposed but that could be the conversion to JPG. As presented in the JPG it does draw the eye too much. On the top edge, one of the red flowers is close to the edge. I would like to see a bit more separation there but that is not a big issue.

Overall, well done. You trouble in finding the right vantage point paid off.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Chris Fully agree with Robert !!!!

I like the combination of close and far elements Effective and strong Might suggest posting at the max allowed size Would be easier to evaluate and appreciate !!!!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Cris,
As the other mentioned..nothing wrong with the crop as you used many elements to frame this one very well. I have a suspicion on this one..so I'll ask............was the water flow very high??? The reason I ask is that if you expose water at 1.6 seconds as you have...........usually you get detail in the flow. I can tell it was overcast from the image overall..............so the only thing that would wash out the whites on a waterfall..........is a very large/powerfull flow............then you need a much faster shutter speed. 2 things determine the look of a waterfall...............amount of water coming over the falls............and then the shutter speed! Both go hand in hand. I have done waterfalls for over 8 seconds...........that didn't get washed out. This is what I suspect...........will be interesting to see if it's jpeg compression.
now that I've rambled a bit.........we can correct the other stuff.......composition is excellent...........and that's more than half the battle,
Roman
PS Welcome to the forums!

[chris Bycroft]

Hi,

Thanks for the comments and suggestions Robert, Alfred and Roman. I have had another go at editing using Lightroom and Elements. I think this is an improvement. I have tried to lighten the mid tones a bit to bring out the vegetation a little better, and I have done some some work on the highlights as well. I also have added a little to the top. I only have marginally cropped this photo anyway so don't have much room in that direction.

Roman, in terms of your question on high water levels, we are having one of the most intense droughts for many years over much of New Zealand. The fast moving water is probably a feature of the steep countryside, and large river catchment. So no - the water levels are not unusually high.

Cheers

Chris

[Robert Amoruso]

Chris,

You gave the image a cool surreal HDR look. I like it. Nice work. Just that little bit more at the top got the red flower off of the edge - nice going.