Monet's Yosemite Falls

Image Critiques Weekly Challenge
1

Monet's Yosemite Falls II.jpg
Monet's Yosemite Falls II.jpg2000×1999 2.55 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

A few years back (not last year), Yosemite Valley’s meadows filled with water during a high spring runoff. The valley is a photographer’s playground, due partly to the almost unlimited opportunities to shoot reflections. A roaring, iconic, 1,430-foot tall Yosemite Falls, reflected here in a grassy meadow, looked to me like an Impressionist Painting.

Specific Feedback

I love this because it’s fun and gave me a new way to capture the iconic waterfall. Obviously I flipped the image to serve my objective – a photo with the gauzy look of Claude Monet’s paintings. Not a lot of processing after that, except to enhance the contrasting greys and blacks in the cliff. It’s still mostly a real image, not digital art. I guess the question is, should I have done more to make this into digital art? Popped the colors? Also, I have wider compositions. General critique welcomed.

Technical Details

Handheld in bright sunlight; Olympus EM1.

2

That it does!! Veeeery cool and well photographed and presented!

3

Great shot James! Its an interesting twist on a heavily photographed scene. It fits the parameters of the challenge well. I like the flipped nature of the shot.

4

Thanks Cameron. Have you shot Yosemite before?
There’s a guy in San Diego who has offered a class in creating Monet style finished images. I recall the first time I visited Paris and shot reflections in the Seine — a wake up call for what must have inspired the Impressionists. I have flipped a few of those shots over too!
I find myself drawn to in-camera effects vs. computer filters.

5

I have not had the chance to visit Yosemite. I have been to Monet’s Garden and home in Giverny and really enjoyed that. I think that reflections might be one of my favorite photography subjects and i have certainly taken a few that benefitted from a good flip.