Schweitzer Waterfalls

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
1

Schweitzer Waterfalls
Schweitzer Waterfalls1440×800 690 KB

Image Description

I took autumn a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to photograph the changing foliage and waterfalls. This is one of the waterfalls I photographed.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.

  • Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.

  • Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.

  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

I like to know your thoughts on how a judge would might view this photo if entered into a contest.

Technical Details

Canon 5D IV | ef17-40mm @ 28mm | f22 | 8.0s | ISO 400
ACR and Photoshop

1 Like
2

I’ll do my best.

I think if I were judging this in a competition, the first thing I’d do is look at it and say “is it all a competent photo” tick mark for that. Then ‘does it look interesting and reasonably well composed’ another tick with a possible check for the intruding foreground which is potential distraction.

Then I’d be looking at ‘what lifts this above other waterfall photos I’ve seen’. The thing that really draws my interest is that little leaning tree - a lovely feature and just in the right position, framing the top of the falls.

The next thing that I like is the lichens and leaf litter on the right upper bank - nice colours and textures.

In the negative column I can’t get away from the intruding foreground and very contrasty log limb that’s sitting above a square of foam.

If it were possible, I would have tried to get a view over the foreground, not always possible.

The right hand side of the image isn’t adding a whole lot to the picture apart from perhaps allowing the falls to ‘finish’.

So - I think it had lots of potential but with the foreground as it is, it provides a big negative for a judge to potentially reject it by.

Great idea and I think with a couple of edits it could mitigate a few of the issues (I did a bit of cloning out which would invalidate it for NLPA but hopefully you can see that it improves things - you could probably reduce the prominence of the dark branch without cloning but it would take a bit of playing with blur and curves to do so).

I hope this helps - here’s a representation of my idea. I’ve reduced the contrast and saturation of the foreground and cropped it out a bit (and vignettes it slightly) and then brightened up the focal point.

waterfall
waterfall1184×670 351 KB

3

Hi Tim,

Thank you for your comments on my waterfall photo. I have shown this photo around a bit and your critique has been the most helpful by far.

As to the foreground. I have been instructed numerous times that you need an element in the foreground to give a photo depth. I can see by your crop that it’s possible for a foreground to be too much and over bearing. In addition to panning up, I think I could have moved forward a few feet. I will definitely keep this lesson in mind for future photos.

While shooting, I wanted to show how the waterfall ends on the lower right side. I can see by your crop that including that element wasn’t really necessary. I also understand what you’re saying about the black branch contrasting against the white water. To be honest, I don’t remember seeing this branch before.

I love that you picked up on the leaning birch tree. It’s one of the elements that I really like about this photo. Most folks that I’ve shown the photo are lost in the waterfall and completely miss it.

The thing that I like the most about your edit is the how you have the focal point popping. My version is much darker and as I think about it, most of my photos are on the darker side. This is defiantly and area I need to work on.

Thank you for taking the time to help me grow!

1 Like