Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
Do you feel like you’re in a small wooden boat being tossed around in the middle of the ocean?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
This is a creek in a canyon near my home. The melting snow from the mountains made it flow very high and fast a couple months ago. It was also very cold! I thought that certain sections of it looked like ocean waves. So I wanted to make it look like the viewer is in the middle of an ocean storm.
Technical Details
Nikon D3400, ISO 100, 300mm (450 equivalent) , f6.3, 1/20 , did a slight crop to take out a rock. Adjusted brightness, highlights, contrast.
Hi Vanessa, yes I certainly feel like I’m being tossed around the frothy seas. Really cool effect and I like your overall composition with the upper left and right parts of the image drawing me into the center. There are some technical improvements that could be made. Primarily on the exposure of the highlights in the bottom right corner and center wave. Do you happen to have a darker exposure of this scene? It may not be possible to recover highlight detail in this one but it would be worth a try.
Thank you @Alfredo_Mora for your feedback. Yeah, I think you’re right about the highlights being beyond saving! Could it have been better if I had chosen a smaller aperture? I have another shot that might have turned out better…… I also did a different crop, what do you think? ….
Vanessa, yes dropping down to f11 or lower while keeping your selected shutter speed and ISO would have helped protect the highlights. I find underexposing an image to protect the highlights is helpful. There is a bit more latitude in recovering shadow detail.
I like your proposed image. Only area of concern is that lower right.
Without seeing any description from you, Vanessa, my initial reaction was that it was a rushing stream, frothy with energy, and you captured that very well. The overexposed highlights do distract from the impact this could have, however. Dropping your exposure down would have protect those highlights. It’s always an issue around water, I find by experience! Also, the upper part flows differently from the rest of the image, and I wonder if that isn’t distracting the eye a bit? I viewed it with the top out of the browser window and liked it better, personally. The second image you uploaded is nice as well, but it doesn’t have the energy that your first image has. Keep working on this technique!
Thank you again @Alfredo_Mora for your feedback on this! I’ll have to try again next year when the water is rushing again, it’s almost down to a trickle now! Thank you @brenda_tharp for taking the time to look and comment, wow! I couldn’t fool you! But you mentioned about the upper part flowing differently from the rest. So actually the upper part is the way that torrent is flowing, from left to right, the lower was splashing back, which were creating that wave. I think it was a rock it was hitting and then being crashed up stream. I hope next year we’ll have as much snow as we did this winter so we get that much water again! And also so I can improve on the scene!
I am immediately drawn to your picture. Feelings are mixed–excited, intrigued, can hear the rush of the water. As I linger, I become calm and want to stay by the stream. Technically I love the play of lines. I wish the highlights were not blown out. I want to take this into Topaz Lab and make a painting out of it. Powerful. Thanks, Vanessa.
After reading the comments, I agree about exposing for the highlights. Do you have a histogram on your screen when composing the scene? Or can you immediately review your shot and see if there is any clipping? Many newer cameras have enough dynamic range to handle the shadows in post-processing so long as they are not clipped.
Hello @Barbara_Djordjevic ! Thank you for your feedback! I’m glad you like the image. Yeah, I should have paid more attention to what it was turning out like in the field. I seem to underexpose a lot of my pictures and then I can never get them to look good after but probably in this instance it would have been helpful. I’ll have to try again next year when there is water again!
Exposure is a tricky thing, and I have the same problem. @Vanessa_Hill For me, the focus is an even bigger problem. It is a good thing what we do is digital and not on film.
