Our month-long canoe trip this past August was not, for the most part, a river trip. But on our very first night we found ourselves camped on a bank about 15 feet above a small set of rapids. We were late getting in and setting up camp, so it was already dusk before I got around to hauling out my camera and tripod to see if I could find a standing wave to focus on. Once I settled on a composition and worked out the settings I just kept pressing the shutter button. It has taken a while for it to sink in, but it has finally come to my attention that, when it comes to moving water, every image, even of the same standing wave, will be different (hey, some of us are slow learners ). I took a hundred images before it got so dark that I had to put the camera away. Sorting through them at home I was surprised, considering I never moved the camera, by the level of variation. I’m considering a monograph of 12 or 14 of these images as a meditation on dynamic invariance – the way a standing wave maintains itself in its sameness – its identity, you might say – while at the same time, being always different. The question for me as a photographer is whether such a group inform each other and tell a story about dynamic invariance or if they are just repetitive. Hopefully, at some point, I can get some of your feedback on that.
But for now, this is the first one I worked on, and I wanted to feel my way around where I wanted to go with the aspect ratio and colour. Obviously, this isn’t what I actually saw (to be frank, the light was so dim, it was getting hard to see at all) but the camera picked up a lot of colour and I decided to pull it out by fiddling with vibrance and saturation a little in Lr and experimenting with a couple of the colour actions in Tony K’s TK panel. I like both that pushing the colour takes the image more into the abstract as well as how it seems to bring out the wave’s inherent dynamism. This could work well in black and white, but in this case, I feel that rather than being a distraction, the colour becomes an integral part of the wave dynamics. I would be very interested to know how others read this image and the impact, if any, it has on you.
Kerry, this is dynamic although I am not familiar with, but I like the term, dynamic invariance. The image is well presented, you selected a good section of water for an especially strong composition. For me, I feel it would lose some impact in B&W, but of course I would have to view it. (That might make for an an interesting comparison. ) The subtle tones of blues and greens in the water are lovely and in the large format there certainly a calming, let your mind wander, meditative quality to the image. I like the shutter speed capturing the thin thread like water streaks . A hundred images, my goodness…all the same, but different…maybe that 's dynamic invariance. Nice photo.
Kerry, I too like the color here. The blues and greens are beautiful, and add some depth (green for shallow water, blue for deep) that a B&W image might not have.
The image has a peaceful impact, for me. Probably mostly from the long shutter speed, but also I think from the calm blues and greens.
I love standing waves…they can be almost hypnotic along with the sounds. I’m glad you’ve drawn attention to this one!
Love these images of rapids. I have a series I did on them as well… The reflections add to the dynamism of the image. Intrigues me how they are static yet dynamic. Nice capture and yes do a series!
This image has a strong composition, and a lot energy. But what I enjoy most about this image is the contrast, and range of color tones. I like that some of the water is pure white, and some a cooler white. The range of green and brown tones in the dark water is also very appealing to me. I guess I just like the contrast in both luminosity and color.
And I learned what dynamic invariance is
I think it would be interesting to see a series of these standing wave images in one post to see how they fare as a collective group. I think such a collection would benefit from a limited number of images with noticeable differences, perhaps a triptych would be one good to present a set of these.
This does have a lot of energy, both as a subject and the composition of diagonals. I particularly like the darker areas because of how the lines stand out in them. It’s similar to the beauty of hair when shot under perfect light. I have shot images such as this in the past and I invariably carve them all up with the crop tool to extract a composition. The water moves in such unpredictable ways that composing is almost impossible. It would be nice if you had dark streaks in the white the way you have white streaks in the dark.
I love this kind of images but I have never been able to do somithing alike even I have done many photos of waterfalls and rapids. All has been said, just a splendid photo.
@Giuseppe_Guadagno - Thanks for taking the time to look and comment. I find photographing true water falls very different from photographing rapids. It’s the standing waves that are common to rapids that interest me most. Although it’s a matter of personal taste, I find somewhere between ¼ and ⅛ sec works well for rapids because it slows things down enough to get a sense of the movement without turning everything to an indistinct marshmallow -y cream. @Ed_McGuirk , for me, dynamic invariance is a basic life principle that too few of us really appreciate. To the extent that we are able to embrace it as an active principle, the concept of boredom becomes moot because how can we be bored in an ever changing, ever unfolding existence? Boredom - been there, done that - is a purely mental construct that we humans use to protect ourselves from the threat we imagine creative uncertainty (dynamic invariance) poses to our security. I try and approach photography from the perspective that whatever I’m perceiving is “new and always new again” but I would also like to find a way to demonstrate that principle and perhaps a series of these images or, as you suggest, a tryptic might be an attempt. @Igor_Doncov - I find composing images of moving water and particularly standing waves is much like composing forest scenes. It’s really about finding the order amidst the chaos. After all, moving water, certainly in the context of standing waves is simultaneously both unpredictable and predictable (i.e., dynamic invariance) so, there will always be surprises but, at the same time, I find I can compose the image based on the invariant part of the equation.
). I took a hundred images before it got so dark that I had to put the camera away. Sorting through them at home I was surprised, considering I never moved the camera, by the level of variation. I’m considering a monograph of 12 or 14 of these images as a meditation on dynamic invariance – the way a standing wave maintains itself in its sameness – its identity, you might say – while at the same time, being always different. The question for me as a photographer is whether such a group inform each other and tell a story about dynamic invariance or if they are just repetitive. Hopefully, at some point, I can get some of your feedback on that.