5D2, 17-40L, CPL , B&W Conversion in Lightroom
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Danny, I was truly taken by the BW treatment of this waterfall. By you use of bw, the motion and texture of the scene jumps out beautifully. I live near Seattle, but have still not yet gone to see the Columbia Gorge waterfalls, only through the lenses of others.
At first I thought that the bright foilage at the top of the falls was distracting, and I changed my mind to imagine that the leaves on the branches were trying to jump into the falls also. Still maybe some of that area could be burned to good effect. Also, consider burning the bright textures in the lower left corner, to keep eyes on thd center of the scene. Fine image!
Danny, This is quite a beautiful location.
I think the B&W conversion has worked quite nicely here. This may be my taste but I would consider burning the cliffs either side of the falls (and their reflections. Just to give a bit of prominence to the whites. I would consider checking the white point for the water in the main drop falls too. It looks on the greyer side of things to me. Im talking about the middle bit between the bowl and the top and the plunge pool at the bottom.
Unfortunately I dont think that the cliff works to well for me. The background is lovely. Great shapes, lighting etc and the wall detracts from that. It’s just to much of a bold element in the image. I dont know the area unfortunately so couldnt suggest another angle that may have yielded better results. If it were possible, taking a few steps to the right and using a slightly longer focal length to isolate the background elements would work. I am assuming this was shot quite close to 40mm given your lens choice and apparent visual dimensions of the image.
Hope that helps!
Eugene
This location is so often seen in color due the lush greens of the vegetation, however I think it was a great choice on your part to convert this to B&W. That same vegetation adds some interesting highlights to a B&W treatment as well.
I agree with @Eugene_Theron about the cliff on the left being too dominant visually, it competes too much with the waterfall for me. While I like having a mirror image of the falls and it’s reflection, that choice forced you into including this much of the left cliff. I think burning down the left cliff would help a little. I might also consider a crop from the bottom, eliminating about half of the waterfalls reflection, which would also get rid of the brightest part of the cliff in the LLC.
