The Gorge, Sonora Pass

This is a wider view of the waterfall I posted earlier. The granite on the left was quite a bit brighter than the rock on the right even though the sun had gone behind a ridge, so I worked to bring it down in order to balance things out.

Nikon D-7100
Nikkor 70-200

Your thoughts are always appreciated. :smile:
–P

1 Like

I like this, the waterfall is framed nicely by the granite and vegetation. I could see maybe dodging up the waterfall a bit to draw the eye in, but it is nice as presented!

The water is rendered beautifully here, Preston. I think the tighter composition that you shared before is a little more appealing. In this one, I feel that I keep wanting a little bit more at the bottom. I really want to see where all this water is going.

The water action is perfect Preston. Incredibly real, like look out a window or from your tent door. Nice work.

Preston, nice job on the tonal balancing, I think you achieved a very natural looking balance. The SS has done a nice job of retaining texture in the water too. Those two bushes in the LRC are somewhat eye magnets for me, but I suspect they would be a bear to clone away, not sure its enough of a distraction to try a tough clone like that. I would also suggest a little more burning in the extreme LLC, to bring it more in line with the tonality of the rock just to the left of the falls. That is a nit, overall this is a very pleasing image though.

Well seen and nicely composed, Preston. Your processing looks very natural. I could see maybe burning the bright rock in the lower left corner so the brightness doesn’t compete with the central portion of the image.

Preston,

This came out quite nicely - especially knowing how far out we were! Did you have to crop much or were you able to reach with the 200? I managed a wider view that shows the layout, but for @Adhika, there are pretty much distractions and tough choices both above and below these falls; in other words, including more below just introduces a huge chunk of granite, lower left… So, I’d say you did quite well isolating and composing this one.

The water looks great - as does the texture and detail in the rock. We commented about the log at the bottom and of course not much to be done about that. Didn’t have Harley handy to send up there are remove the log… :wink:

Well done sir.

Lon

Thanks for your comments, everyone. :+1:

@Lon_Overacker, this was shot at 122mm, so I could have gone wider. I opted for the tighter view because of all the distractions that you mentioned, that would have taken away emphasis of the main cascade. I used a SS of 1/4s @ ISO 100 @ f-16. I did crop a bit from the right side.

@Dave_Dillemuth Dave and @Ed_McGuirk Ed, I agree about the rock in LLC.
–P

Preston, it’s an inviting rendition of this falls… Your tonal work on the rocks looks very good. It a tough view, because of that tree at the bottom. I’m like Adhika, wishing for a bit more at the bottom. However, given what I see here and Lon’s description of the area, I don’t see a solution short of building a 10-15 ft high shooting platform, so you can see over the rocks at the bottom of the frame…