The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical
About This Image
Light was beginning to fade late on our second day in Yosemite, and @Lon_Overacker and Kyle suggested visiting The Cascades before calling it quits for the day. As we climbed out of the valley we drove into the clouds that had been hanging just above us, and when we arrived at the falls the fog was a pretty dense soup. That made for some amazing conditions that I’ve tried to capture here.
Feedback Requested
I found it a bit tricky to balance the composition and lighting, and would love any thoughts for improvement.
I wanted to convey how dense the fog was, but didn’t want to lose that leaning tree in the background. Does that balance work here?
Are the water texture and the black and white conversion are in keeping with the foggy mood?
Technical Details
Camera: NIKON Z 7_2
Lens: NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S
Focal length: 21mm
Shutter speed: 1/5s
Aperture: f/9
ISO: 320
Very nice take on the cascades. You did a grand job with your exposure and processing, John. I’m a little on the fence with big log, but it was unavoidable.
Just a though here, but you might try using a BW layer with its blending mode set to ‘luminosity’ and then adjusting the yellows and greens to bring up their brightness a little bit.
Is this Cascade Creek?
Nicely done, and you did well with the marginal conditions!
-P
Love this! The mood and atmosphere created by the fog and waning light really do capture that sense of time.
I think you did an excellent job not only capturing, but in conveying the dense fog. And yeah, glad that tree in the background is just visible enough and having something for the eye to enjoy while exploring the entire frame.
The water looks great too, especially the cascade at the bottom. I will echo a little bit on Preston’s suggestion. For me it would be more important to raise the luminosity a smidge mostly in the leaves of the tree on the left; not so much on the right. We’re talking little tweaks.
Of course I can attest to the fog - and as you mentioned, we literally drove up into the clouds; kinda surreal actually. Here’s a snap of Steve on the opposite side of the road from your perspective.
What a gorgeous, ghostly scene!! I also wondered about bringing out the brightness of the leaves a little, but can’t complain about how they are – just an idle wonder. That tree in the BG is fantastic and it makes me wonder about a twofer, with about the top 3/5 of the image. You have shown very well how special the fog was.
@Lon_Overacker 's picture of Steve would make me wonder if I should file IFR to walk across the road.
I was wondering when you were going to post this one. The mood is sensational. The water texture is just right so 1/5 worked really well. It’s funny because I usually shoot moving water at around 1/4 to 1/2 second to retain texture but on this trip I was constantly around 1/13th to 1/5 of a second. Maybe it’s how fast the water was moving through the rivers and falls but I sure had to adjust.
I think your balancing the composition and the lighting was masterfully accomplished. This is one of your best images from the trip in my eye. I love the title that Lon came up with, “The Land That Time Forgot.” Perfect!
It was so surreal when we drove from the valley up into the mountainside to these falls. The fog was so dense you could barely see the center line of the road. However, it made for some really, really gorgeous images like this one. I actually don’t even mind the log. It’s real and it really doesn’t upset the balance of the image. My only thoughts are the upper right corner where there is a tiny white gap poking into the frame, and the upper left corner where the branches and leaves go very dark right up against that white frame. I love that you can barely see the tree background tree through the fog. What a great image, John. And while you were shooting that image I was shooting you:
To clarify, do you mean use the luminosity of the black and white to adjust the color version (or vice versa?)? Yes, this is Cascade Creek.
I will play with your and Preston’s idea. A first step I do on all images is run an action that creates channels from red, green, blue , cyan, magenta, , yellow, black, lightness, a, and b. These make it really easy to target original colors even after conversion to black and white because they just live on the Channels Palette in case I need them. The short of it is that I should be able to easily target those leaves and play with their luminosity.
Well that nicely shows the conditions!
It was a little intimidating to cross the road. There were corners in the road both right before and after the bridges crossing Cascade Creek, and I worried about how easy it would be for cars to see us and slow as needed. It’s one of the reasons I tend to buy bright rain jackets as you can see in @David_Haynes photo.
I think that may be a result of the framing?? Here’s a full-size crop of the top of the image to compare:
John: The caliber of your recent work has really been top drawer and this is a great example. A marvelous scene and your depiction of it makes me want to be there. Most excellent. >=))>
John, as everyone else says, your choices look great. The tree and the other bits subtly fading into the fog at the top are important both for the viewing and for the story telling. I’m a big fan of details that make the view spend time looking or going back and looking again and again. Yes, I could see a prehistoric critter emerging in the distance.
