I captured this scene in northern Arkansas when I was chasing waterfalls with a group of fellow photographers a few weeks back. I’m open to any feedback but I’m mainly looking to see what others think of the composition and post-processing (believe it or not, the color of the water is pretty accurate). A storm was rolling in and I wanted to juxtapose the smoothness of the falls and basin with a hint of the turmoil building in the sky above us.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Single frame, 25 second exposure using a 6-stop ND filter and CPL
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@michaelrungphotography
Beautiful colors and silky water and a real pretty scene. I might pull the pull out of the water coming over the falls to provide more color contrast with the pool? Not a biggie either way and very much a personal vision thing. Nicely seen and presented.
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As this unscrolled into view on my monitor I noticed the strong horizontals in this image. Have you considered emphasizing that aspect of your composition?
I really like your image as is, however. Color is subjective but I thought the cyans were a bit too strong for my taste, as are the blues in the water in the cascade.
Wonderful image. Thanks for sharing.
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Michael,
I absolutely love this! Everything about it. Where to start? The sky since it’s at the top; very complimentary to the scene - just enough texture, and setting the tone for the mood and lighting in the scene.
The falls are beautiful and I’m really liking the way the tree trunks are distributed around and between the falls. and the color in the water - I believe you and doesn’t look over the top to me.
The rocks anchor the scene perfectly, including the larger, lichen covered rock that open perfectly to all the water to spill in to the foreground pool. And that pool is beautiful as well.
I wouldn’t crop or change a thing. Love this. I would call this a complete image - beautifully scene, crafted, processed and presented. Kudos!
Lon
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Michael, this is simply a wonderful image! I like nearly everything about it but for me the way you composed the mid ground of this scene is just brilliant! The colors are subjective but I prefer a little less cyan, but that is a real nit! Beautiful work!
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Nice job on placing that tree between the falls and using the stream to guide the eye in! I really like that water color too, and the sky works well. My only “personal preference” would be to see more detail (just a little) in the waterfalls, especially the main fall on the left.
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Michael, this is a very unusual and interesting waterfall image. To my taste the color in the water is natural looking and not over the top. In fact I love the contrast between aqua and the white water of the falls. I think the composition is nicely balanced with the 3 sets of trees, and the two large rock shelves. But I agree with @Igor_Doncov that there are several strong horizontal shaped elements here, and Igor’s crop does a nice job of accentuating those features. I think another variation on the horizontal theme would be another crop that retains more of the aqua water, but eliminates the small rock in the foreground. Something like this…
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Nice. I like your crop. It feels right.
Hi Igor, I did play around with the crop, and don’t mind the example you’ve posted here. I think, ultimately, I preferred the additional water in the foreground but only by a slight margin.
Interesting that you find the falls show a fair amount of blues in them as I’m not seeing much at all on my calibrated monitor. I did play with the saturation in the pool a bit but left it pretty darn close to how it looked in person; the color was pretty brilliant and most people reacted with, “Wow!” when we got out of the cars and first saw the water.
Thank you for the feedback, and I apologize for how long it’s taken me to respond. Life got really hectic shortly after I posted and I’m just now finding time to catch up on some things.
Wow, thank you so much for the praise, Lon! And sorry it’s taken me so long to say so, life has been a bit crazy the past few weeks but I’m finally catching up. 
Thanks, Alan! I definitely went back and forth on the water saturation but in my mind’s eye this matches what I saw in person (slightly boosted but within reason). Like you said, color is highly subjective and I can see how this would fall on either side of opinion. That said, I did revisit the edit and pulled back overall vibrance and the saturation on a local adjustment brush a hair to see how it looked. Subtle but I’ll let it simmer for a bit to see which way I land.
Hey John, I kind of agree re: the detail in the falls. I generally prefer to keep a little “chunkiness” but on this one felt a smoother look worked better given how busy the overall scene is with the trees, rocks, and clouds. I definitely appreciate the feedback!
Thanks Ed, I appreciate the feedback… sorry for taking so long to respond, as I’ve told some others life got hectic and I’m just now catching up on some things. I hope you didn’t think your comment fell on deaf ears!
I don’t mind the crop you did here, although I still have a preference for my original. Yours doesn’t feel like anything is being cut off but, for me personally, I like the little added detail of the rocks under the water in my original crop. Gives my eye a little something to play with before being drawn into the rest of the image. In thinking about why, perhaps it’s because that little extra detail helps bring some balance given how busy the top of the image is with the trees and clouds?
It’s a detail that, had I not known it was there to begin with, I wouldn’t miss it so I can definitely see your crop as a viable option as the end of the day.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your feedback.
