I shot this image in October of 22 at one of the most scenic waterfall locations in my general area. But how many times can one make a photo that’s been made 100s or thousands of times before? After climbing out from the bottom of the steep ravine I’d been in, I knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied the photos I had on my memory cards. Hiking back to the parking area, I was on a wooden walkway that was only recently built & was remembering what the scene was like before it was constructed -one of my favorite vantage points had been taken away. I kept going a bit further & realized I might be able to fit myself under the walkway as it was elevated off the forest floor a bit so I hopped the railing & looked for a suitable location. I pulled off my pack & crawled under neath to find a spot where I could sit upright on my knees. I felt like a troll from the Three Billy Goats Gruff as a handful of people walked over me with no idea I was there.
I took a few static shots but wasn’t feeling good about them so I started using a bit of ICM to help me out. My goal was to track the water as it cascaded down a rock face & freeze some of the motion while blurring anything static which was the dark rock face, green moss & multi colored leaves. I shot hundreds & hundreds of variations over about 1.5hrs but finally got too stiff & cramped being hunched over under the walkway so I packed up & finished the hike back to the car & drove home.
Once I imported the photos from the day into my LR catalog, the ICM images grabbed my attention & in particular, this one. I see flames in the frame & it got me thinking about various religious traditions & how they often tend to say we’re all part of the same thing. Or at least my interpretation. In gnostic tradition in particular, there is a notion that all of have what they call a “divine spark” & it’s a piece of divinity we all carry inside us & that’s really what I see here, hence the title.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
I worked this image for quite some time in both LR & PS trying to pull texture out of the image. I got it to this point & have printed it on one of my favorite papers which has a kind of luster finish. It looks great! I think it may look just a touch better on a matt paper so I’m going to spend some more time dialing it in for that when I get a chance.
I’s be interested to hear what others may suggest as to how I might improve what I’ve got here. I actually think I need to rotate it a degree or so to the left which I’ve just noticed!
Technical Details
I shot this on my D850 with a Tamron 70-200 at ISO125, shutter speed of 1/4 second at f16
LOVE this! I enjoyed your backstory and description… how about “Eternal Flame?” There’s another as I first thought of flames. Of course there is no flame without first a spark.
The motion and flow is wonderful and of course the colors are beautiful. Just a terrific job on processing. I think the textures are great too.
Hard to be critical or make suggestions with such an abstract. This is beautiful as presented. the only thing I can think of would be to add some texture/luminosity to the LLC - lower left corner; the far corner there is just bit darker than other areas - like the opposite corner. Very minor thought though.
Kristopher, what a beautiful image you created! The story behind the shot is also captivating. I must say that when I looked at the new entries in my NPN view, the colors and shapes in your photo immediately grabbed my attention. I instantly thought of fire. So, upon reading your story, I realized I was not very far from what my mind imagined.
I really cannot think of any necessary thing you’d need to do to make the image more striking than how you presented it. I cannot perceive the rotation you seem to find necessary. Aesthetically, the image and colors flow very naturally. The textures and tones are beautiful. If I had edited the image, I would have cropped it a bit tighter, especially on the left side. I see a lot more dark areas on the left than on the right side. For balance sake, I would have cropped some of the dark on the left. It is only my way of looking at things.
Were the orange hues naturally present in the rock face? What a beautiful ICM you showed us here!
Yo @Kris_Wyman nice to see you here, welcome to NPN!
This is a super evocative image - it works well for me and I usually am not a huge fan of ICM. Why this works is because it’s mysterious and not obviously ICM.
You’ve successfully transformed some leaves into a fire. That’s rad!
Thank you, Egidio! I think you are on to something about the darkness on the left & Lon has shared a suggestion about the LLC which could definitely fit with the balance you’re talking about. I’m going to try both cropping & lightening that that area to see which feels best to me. Thanks again!
Hey Matt, thanks man! I like to do ICM in a way that looks a bit different than the traditional “look” -sometimes it works as it has here & sometimes it doens’t work at all!
@joaoquintela Thank you for the compliment, I really appreciate it!
Compelling and original abstract image Kristopher! I love the symbolism in the image, the colors, and ambiguity of true subject. The backstory was fascinating to read. Like you, I also try to go for non-traditional ICM as a creative challenge. You have succeeded to create a truly engaging image!
Thanks, Alfredo! It can be difficult to find different aesthetics with ICM but when you find one, it’s really interesting. I’ve also been working on a collection of images of the same little whitewater section of a local stream. No ICM but I’m getting very interesting results that look like faces in the details of the bubbles, it’s pretty neat. They fit well into 1x1 aspect ratio & look great in b&w. I’ll share some of them when I have a chance.
