I sat on a rock on the river right bank of Tohickon Creek in PA. I liked the white sycamore in the distance, and how still the forest was compared to the fast river. The water was an unappealing brown, full of leaves released from the reservoir. I set up my tripod on the rock and did my best not to let anything fall into the water (nothing did, this time!). An hour later I kayaked down this stretch of river for the 4th time during the weekend release, which is scheduled every March and November.
Nikon Z6, 50mm, F16, 1/6 sec, ISO 100, EC 0, no flash. Tripod.
Raw File
AG1_2872.NEF (31.8 MB)
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My Edit
Hi Ann! I can see why you were drawn to this scene and that sycamore across the river. I like your choice of a long shutter speed, as it makes the water flow in such a graceful way.
I spent a few minutes with the image and have two different interpretations. Because I wanted to simplify the scene a bit, I ended up cropping out the water movement… that led me to go for a second, more abstract version that’s not what you intended at all but was still fun to experiment with 
The first processing challenge edit:
I wanted to make the color in the trees pop a bit more so that the bare trees receded a bit. I also wanted to remove what felt like distractions from the sycamore as a focal point. Primary edits were: I cropped quite a bit, cooled the overall temp down and used a linear gradient to cool the water down a touch more. Bumped up the texture a little, kept clarity as-is, and dehazed a few notches. Took it into PS and cloned out those dangling brown leaves in the UM and a darker, heavier branch that poked into the newly-cropped frame in UR. I used the brush mask to lift and brighten up the color on the primary trunks, leaves and evergreens. Applied a slight vignette to help pull your eye more towards center and the sycamore.
And because I loved the water motion, I had to play with that a bit, converting to b/w with the BW12 preset as a starting point and lifting the blacks a bit, decreasing the grain and clarity, and adding a slight vignette. When focused in this far, I noticed what seemed like a sensor spot in a dark part of the MR area, so I healed that right on outta there!
Thanks for the fun challenge!
What a great image @Ann_Gillard ! I really like all of the colour and fine detail in the trees. Here is my take on it:
Thanks so much, Tom - looks great! It looks like you darkened the left and right sides of the forest so the sycamore stands out more, and the colors are more aligned throughout. Thanks for taking an interest in my work 
Wow, Beth! Thanks for explaining your process and reasoning so clearly! I like how the first image retains a lower border of the water while making the forest the star. And I like how the second image focuses on the river’s movement and flow. Thanks so much for showing me new ways to look at this!
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