If you saw my last image, I talked about what causes yellow reflections in water and by playing around with the SS you can get more/less yellow to appear in your image. I took this photo in the Smoky Mountains on a clear, blue sky day. I did little processing on it - some cleanup, a light vignette to bring out the light in the center, a small amount of dodging to lighten the center and took out a little cyan color in the water.
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Not much to this photo, but if you see anything that is distracting your eye let me know.
Gorgeous colors!! This is one where the action seems to be moving out of the frame – I wonder if there was a good composition if the camera was aimed just a little left, or maybe crop a little from the right? I like all of the image, but just want to see a little more of where the water is flowing to. But I understand maybe there was something less interesting there. This is one to just accept the composition, trust the maker and enjoy it!!
Pretty clear you took the workshop lessons to heart! And maybe this is too obvious aside from the exposure length and filtered mid-day light - but positioning can maximize and change the intensity of reflections. Squatting down lower, or even elevating your position to find the right and maximized colors… all part of the challenge of finding compelling images - as I’m gathering you spend time doing.
Well, it’s certainly paid off. Wonderful reflected colors combine with a very beautiful little section of this stream. While I do like this very much as presented, I think there is a lot of real estate that is simply a repeat of that wonderfull reflected color. I can see maybe even a square crop expanding out staring from the LLC and stopping where it feels best. Most of the interest in the water is in that quadrant - and the beautiful colors are throughout. Just a thought.
Nothing distracting and the colors/processing look great.
Hoping you have more!
Lon
Oh, and I’m a big advocate of: One can photograph ALL day long! I don’t care if there’s blue bird skies at mid day… there is always shade and subjects; reflected light… something always to photograph. Of course as I get older, taking naps is also optional during blue bird afternoons… ha ha.
Great colors! I also like a lot the difference in luminosity in different areas of the image. As already pointed out by others, the stream at the left border feels a little bit cut off. Besides that, I like the image as is. It must have been really fun moving around at this place to find the best reflections!
@David_Bostock@Diane_Miller@DeanRoyer@Lon_Overacker@Ola_Jovall Thanks for all the nice comments and suggestions. I uploaded a rework. I brought up the original photo in Photoshop to see if I had done any cropping. I did a very small crop at the bottom to take out a section where the water was not flowing over the BC stone and a small area to the left that might catch the eye. I try not to clone if possible. I re-cropped so that the L side was at the edge and cloned out the small section that might be distracting. A small section of the T side and R side were cropped too. I kept the bottom cropped as in the original. I hope the tiny extra space on the L side helps with the flow.
Hi Donna! I like both shots. The greens in the right 2/3rds of the photo just have a lot going on and the bit with more motion and rocks just gives you some nice context. Beautiful photo. As other people said I’m also inspired to get out and catch some water reflections.
I am too, Lon. When I go out to take photographs, I rarely leave early morning. I mosey out around 10:00 am and stay all day until late afternoon. We have too many hills in Ithaca to get sunrises and sunsets except over the lakes. The lakes are beautiful, but it’s hard to capture anything around them. The parks are on the south or north ends and the places where you could take the sunsets are either private property, areas you can’t get to or have no foregrounds. I have learned that taking photos of running water with the sun shinning down rarely turn out because of the blown out reflections. I usually wait for a cloudy day to take waterfalls or stream photos, but I still go out looking for something in shaded areas.
