I recently got back from a trip to GSMNP, it was great to get away for a few days and spend some time along the rivers and streams. My first morning I went up to the top of the mountains in hopes of catching sunrise, it was so windy that I’m not sure I came away with anything usable beyond a screen. It was pretty sunny all day so a shot some abstracts and explored this little river, pulling off to the side as often as the road would allow marking places I wanted to come back to the following day. For this image, I just loved the flowing of the water, the sweep of the dogwood and then the harsh barren tree right in the middle.
Specific Feedback Requested
General thoughts…things that I’m still thinking about…Too bright in the highlights of the water? Clone out the bare spots top left? Colors…greens always challenge me!
Oh nice. I can almost hear the roar. There’s power in that water and I’d have a go at doing some sculpting there. I often use a brush in Lightroom with the dehaze slider. If that’s not getting you what you want you could try texture and contrast as well. Alternately you could go into Photoshop and use some luminosity masks and dodging and burning. I bet you could crank the drama there. I like the shutter speed here, too. I haven’t downloaded it so can’t see if the highs are clipping but they look ok here.
In terms of color, you could try some HSL panel work to separate the green and yellows a bit more. That said, the bright bit of green on the right edge is a bit too bright compared to the water so maybe tone that down. Getting rid of the sky patches should be easy, but they aren’t too much in my opinion.
This is one of your very best images in my opinion. The water has been handled to perfection.
Absolutely not. It’s the highlights in that water that gives it life. It’s one of water’s endearing qualities and is usually lost with too slow shutter speeds. The sparkle is lost. But its here. Perfect shutter speed. But the trees are still the main attraction here for me.
I’m not a fan of tall verticals unless there are tall vertical subjects. And here there are none. So, in my opinion some of the water has to go. A square crop would be my choice. The trees are lovely but the white water near the bottom draw our attention away from the trees.
David, this is stunning. The water is perfect as @Igor_Doncov said. Well done with the choice of shutter speed to blur enough but keep it alive. The soft light in the forest compliments the water quite nicely. There’s always something we can do to our images (they’re never done are they?), but for this one, I prefer to just sit and enjoy the large version on my screen. Well done.
Beautiful, tranquil scene. I can just hear the sound of the rushing water - and the quiet of the spring forest. With David B., a bit - some times scenes are just meant to be enjoyed. Hard to be suggest any improvements here…
I think the spring greens - color and sat, look just right to me. Greens especially are easily over done.
I like a crop as well, but maybe only 10-15% off the bottom. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful scene as captured, presented… so anything modified here is likely more an alternate version, rather than a better one.
@Kris_Smith I’ve taken another crack at the water, I’m wondering if somewhere between the new edit and the original is the sweet spot…Thank you for suggesting I look at that again. I never seem to push things like that far enough.
@Igor_Doncov Thank you for the kind words. I have a few more from this trip that I intend to process (one more similar to your crop as well). The water was really moving fast, I’m used to shooting things like this at around 1/4 sec. but these were often 1/10 or 1/15 due to the speed.
@David_Bostock and @Lon_Overacker Thank you so much! I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, I will set on the revised edit for a while and see where I land!
David, to me as a man of forest most of the time. My attention was drawn by those beautiful trees. The water was bit to much for me. I am more for the rework Igor made, where the image is more in balance IMHO. Still an amazing image. Where it for you was about the water.
The highlights in the water look good. I like the impact of the re-post with the added contrast not just in the water, but throughout the scene. The flow and texture in the water hold my interest in the composition and of course the spring greens and dogwood blooms add a lot of interest to the image. Nicely done!
WOW! I just saw this and think it is gorgeous!! The dogwood is so perfectly placed in the scene. I prefer the softer water in the first version but like something close to @Igor_Doncov’s crop. I would probably try to touch out the sky but t’s not a big deal.
I believe most has already been said but I thought I would chime in here as well. First off, Beautiful image. Like many of the others, I feel like I’m transported to the middle of the river where I have my feet dangling in the water and I’m enjoying the spring leaves popping on the trees and flowers on the dogwood. I love the shutter speed that you chose for the water. You’ve got great definition but there is flow and separation between the highlights and the darker tones with no “milk”. Well done. I agree with others that this could be left alone and you’d have a wonderful image to enjoy. But, I am a photographer and I am always tweaking things, needed or not and this probably doesn’t need it. So for me this scene is more about the rebirth of forest life and that wonderful dead snag just off center to the left. The stream is important but I think it has too much weight in the image. I love that dead tree and the character that is conveyed by the branches and I love that the Dogwood branches are all going in the direction of the dead tree. The trees on the far left frame the woods beautifully. What grabs my eye just a little bit is that dead snag in the URC. It parallels the shape of the dogwood so in that respect it’s not bad at all and even frames the scene nicely but it does pull my eye a little bit so I thought maybe a crop would work to remove the snag and some of the water as well as a tiny bit of the highlights in the very ULC. This may not be any better but what the heck.
Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. In reflecting on this trip, I believe one of the things I’ve learned is that I need to use more of a mid range lens than a wide angle. Step back from the edge of the water a bit and find an interesting foreground that is part way into the water instead of more on the edges. I think what happened for most of these is that I had the wider lens on and then to get as much of the sky out as possible I kept pointing the lens further and further down to remove more and more sky but this lead to “too much” water. I for one, really enjoy the water but I can also see how it becomes a bit repetitive and doesn’t always add to the image. Thank you all for the feedback!
@David_Wallace I wanted to follow up after reading your last comment. I have found that using a wide-angle lens in these kind of scenes is most effective when you can get lower and feature a specific cascade more prominently in the scene. That can be a powerful way to pull the viewer in to the scene. Interestingly it can also be a way to minimize clutter in the background because it exaggerates the relationship between foreground and background. I actually like the water in this scene and while I am in the minority I prefer it without the crop. I think there is enough interest in the flow and texture of the water to hold my interest. This just shows that it comes down to subjectivity.
David, your comments about ultra wide angle lens hit home with me. I used to have a lot of wide angle lenses, even the 11-24 zoom from Canon. I found I really did not like the distortion and I was always struggling to find a excellent foreground because those lenses so accentuate the foreground. ’
Today, my widest zoom goes to 24mm. My main lenses are 45-100mm and100-200mm zooms. Maybe I don’t get those WOW wide angle scenes, but I find what I do get, for me, is more natural. So I suggest going with a more normal lens, give it a try, and see if it fits your style.
Having said that, your original comp works very well for me.
@David_Bostock and @Brian_Schrayer thanks for checking it out. I can chalk this up as a learning experience for sure. I went back to look at the metadata on this one and it was shot at 50mm so I actually didn’t have my wide angle on. It might be that it was posted up to high and needed to lower my tripod a bit, could have balanced it. I’m posting another after this that was shot @ 40mm but was shot much lower and the difference is noticeable.
So for me this scene is more about the rebirth of forest life and that wonderful dead snag just off center to the left. The stream is important but I think it has too much weight in the image. I love that dead tree and the character that is conveyed by the branches and I love that the Dogwood branches are all going in the direction of the dead tree. The trees on the far left frame the woods beautifully. What grabs my eye just a little bit is that dead snag in the URC. It parallels the shape of the dogwood so in that respect it’s not bad at all and even frames the scene nicely but it does pull my eye a little bit so I thought maybe a crop would work to remove the snag and some of the water as well as a tiny bit of the highlights in the very ULC. This may not be any better but what the heck.