Pulled up to this spot in WV and thought we may be able to wait out the rain. 20 minutes later we realized that wasn’t going to be an option. Learned that these rocks are super slippery when wet, nearly took a tumble or two.
Open to any CC!
Is this a composite: No
I like this a lot David. You have a nice line leading from fg to bg taking the viewer through the entire image. I just like the light here. There’s a Romantic sense of nature to this image. Really well done. The leaves get your attention initially. That underwater ledge in the waterfall you’ve captured is just wonderful as well. Image is crisp in the front and fades to a mist in the back. This is real good David.
This is a really nice image David. It was worth the risk on the slick rocks! I like the shutter speed you chose for the water - perfect. My only suggestion might be to crop the top just a bit to get rid of the bright sky. It seems to compete a bit with the beautiful water fall.
Really nice composition, David. And the feeling of fall just permeates the whole scene. Nice work on the shutter speed too.
Very nice! I love the balance/composition, with the background waterfall “disappearing”, then reappearing - it has a nice rhythm. The way the rocks and water point to the back waterfall is lovely. I rather like the bit of sky at the top, as the brightness adds to the rhythm of the waterfalls.
The brown outcrop with the orange leaves in the lower left has a lot of visual weight in the frame, because of its warm color, relative size in the frame, and its position at the edge of the frame. I was thinking that maybe different parts in the frame could be adjusted to give a bit more weight to balance the lower left. To that end, I fiddled around with it (hope you don’t mind). Here’s what I did:
Anyway, it’s a super photo - I really like it. And I always love to see scenes from the “east”.
@Igor_Doncov Much appreciated. When I first got home my initial concern was that the falls stuck so far in the LRC would cause an issue, but as I sat with it a bit more it seemed to flow well. I was also concerned that I didn’t take a second image for a sharper background, but over time I realized that it actually is better to have it a bit soft as it emphasized that rain and mist even more.
@kelly_cole That is a good suggestion and would probably help me to remove one of the parts I like the least, which is the tiny little fall the creeps in on the extreme left of the image. I will play a bit and see what I can do.
@David_Bostock Thank you!
@Bonnie_Lampley thanks for the thoughtful ideas. Some good tips here, I know what you mean about the branches/blues, I will go back and take a look at that.
Thanks!
This one looks really good. I had the same thought on the crop as Kelly to eliminate the bit of sky. Otherwise, I quite like it as presented.
Really strong waterfall image David. I agree with Harley and Kelly that a crop of the sky is a good way to go. I think there is enough light misy-iness directly above the falls that you get a nice glow effect without needing to include the sky.
My other (very minor) nitpick is the tiny amount of white water on the frame edge spilling to the left of the boulder in the ULC, it creates a minor hotspot. I would be inclined to clone it away, a crop from the left would lose the nice framing yellow tree in the ULC.
In terms of composition, I really like how you have strong diagonals in the rocks on both sides near the bottom, it creates a nice visual flow beyond just the diagonal of the stream. well done on htis image David.
I’m doing a scroll crop and I prefer removing the sky portion at the top of the image. It draws too much attention. I am also draw to the mid left edge of the image where the rock leaves the image and you can see a small waterfall encroaching into the scene. As others have mentioned, either a crop of the left side of cloning that out as it draws the eye right out of the image. Otherwise, you have tremendous light, superb fall colors, good shutter speed although I like more texture in the water, great flow through the image, and just a naturally beautiful scene.
The glow of light through the trees near the top is really wonderful. I wouldn’t crop much and diminish that. It’s one of its better features.
I see you made it to Douglas Falls, David. Glad to see you didn’t have any problems with the directions we gave you. This image is well worth the little inconvenience of some rain. I do like the atmospherics with the light mist/rain as well as the diagonal flow of the water in the image. I do agree with the couple of tweaks already mentioned about the sky and the little cascade along the left side of the frame. I didn’t notice it until I opened the large image, but if you ever make a print of this I would be inclined to clone out those couple of limbs which intersect with Douglas Falls. I hope you had a good trip and came home with some images that you like.
@Harley_Goldman @Ed_Lowe @Ed_McGuirk @David_Haynes @Igor_Doncov
Here it is with a crop. I also did some warping to keep the left side in and just remove the sky portion at the top. Interested if that looks obvious. I also cloned out the little portion on the left edge where a small cascade was coming into the frame.
@Ed_Lowe I want to get those cloned out but I was having a heck of a time doing it and had to just move on. There is something about the smooth curved texture of the water that is really throwing off the replacement pixels, they just don’t even come close to matching. I tried content aware fill, spot healing brush, and clone stamping, none of which worked to my satisfaction. It was frustrating me so I had to just leave it alone.
And yes the directions helped greatly! It was a good trip. Most of my favorites are of the waterfalls. I had hoped to get a bit more “fall color” but the colors just seemed so late.
If you are doing cloning in Lightroom, it helps to zoom into the image at 100%, use a really small brush and maybe do the limbs in more than one section. The results of LR cloning/healing are often improved by doing it at 100%, in my experience it does a better job of picking good clone areas. If you were not doing it at 100%, give it a try, it may help give better results.
As I commented you lost some of the forest highlight with this crop and that’s unfortunate.
Very well handled - just as well that you are safe! I wouldnt venture - too afraid of slipping
