This was another gray day in the Smoky Mountains with hurricane Ian tracking up the coast.
I have been tinkering with this obsessively and I don’t think I have captured the gloomy feeling this spot had.
Canon 5DM4 39 mm ISO 100 f/16 3.2 Sec
2 image blend
A bit of Orton effect vignetting the image
Hi John,
Really nice shot. That area looks nice with lots of potential. I’ll just add some words without thinking too hard about how to structure my comments. To some, I think it might feel gloomy enough, just from the darkness of the image. A lot of it comes down to personal preference and perception of the image.
If you could put in to words, what would make it more gloomy to you? To me, gloomy = grey. This has a lot of blacks in it, which is more foreboding or ominous to me. The greens are vibrant and the water is on the edge of clipping in some spots, so there is some vibrant energy in it. Maybe this is lending you to not feel it is gloomy enough?
If you gave this shot to me to process and said “make it gloomy”, I would try to even out the tonality across the image a bit, toning down the highlights in the water and bringing up the deep shadows. I would decrease the vibrancy of the green foliage underneath the water. Basically, making it flatter tonally which gets closer to my interpretation of gloomy/grey. I would then dodge back in some light on a few of the rocks to add some depth to the image. For me, I would like to see less blacks across the image since there is so much interesting stuff there, then you can play with lighting or hiding certain elements.
I don’t know if any of that makes sense…I just thought I’d take a crack at giving you some feedback on this. I think the image has a ton of potential…the big key is knowing and being able to describe to yourself how you want the finished image to look, then going after it in Post.
I also would not call this gloomy. I would call it mysterious (in a good way). I find the bright water to be too bright and jarring compared to the rest of the image. I would greatly tone it down.
Thanks John/Igor.
I appreciate the advice and comments. Maybe I was wrong in describing the scene as gloomy. I think a foreboding was more what I was feeling. I went back and toned down the water, brought up the shadows from the rocks, and toned down some of the vibrancy of the greens. Unfortunately I it feels to me like I have lost some of the mysteriousness that Igor mentioned. This may be one of those images that I keep fiddling with for a long time.
John,
In continuing the darker presention - this works beautifully. Even more so, I like the rework a bit better with just a little bit more for the viewer to enjoy.
Only 2 things to comment/suggestion on. I would suggest cropping or cloning the vegetation on the left; those somewhat brighter, sporadic leaves drew my eye right away.
The second thing I’m not sure what you could do, but I’m just wishing for a bit more room at the bottom, but that’s pretty minor.
A wondeful “deep in the forest” mood to this.
Lon
Lon
Thanks for the suggestions. I did go back and cloned out the bright leaves on the left and it does improve the focus on the falls. I also agree on your comments about a little more pond on the bottom. Unfortunately I didn’t pick up on that when I originally composed the shot so this is all I have.
John
