"Eaux fumantes" (Steaming waters)

[Claude_Hamel]

Hello Eric. Le deseo lo mejor para el año 2023. I am a very late vocation amateur photographer and autumn is also my favourite season. Each year, I visit a well-known provincial part near Quebec City in my home province in Canada. The road in the park follows the Jacques-Cartier river for more than 30 kilometers. Two or more times a day, I drive very slowly up and down, stopping to explore anything that grabs me, depending on sights, scents, weather and personal mood. The morning of this photo was cold, with blue skies, with mist rising from the river – a rarity last year due to a warm autum season. I made this photo to express the energizing mood of the fast moving river and the spirit of discovery of these annual visits in the park as manifested in the contrasting move from cool mist and shadows to the highlights of a rising sun deep around the bend.

Specific Feedback Requested

Any comments will be appreciated. More specifically, I would like to know if you find the rocks that are touching the frame at both sides to be distracting the flow and in need of being removed in Ps?

Technical Details

Sony a7 iii, 1.5 sec at f/16, 71mm. Processed in Lr only.

[Eric_Bennett]

Hi Claude,

To be honest it’s hard for me to find the subject here. Is it about the water or the light in the distant background? The subject matter is nice but I am not feeling a sense of flow with the composition. I think if there was no sunlight in the background there would be more emphasis on the water and it would have a clearer focal point. Not sure if there is anything you can do about that now though. Maybe you could crop down from the top enough to exclude it and it would still work.

Como no tienes mucho tiempo haciendo la fotografia, el mejor consejo que te puedo dar es: Es super importante que siempre consideres el sujeto de la foto cuando estas tomando fotos. Si sabes cual es el sujeto, todo lo demas se te va a hacer mucho mas sencillo. Si no sabemos de que se trata la foto, se nos hace imposible hacer una composicion eficaz para guiar el ojo hacia algo en particular. Cada foto necesita un heroe.

I hope this is helpful!

Your friend,
Eric