Friday last week I visited Forsamölla (“fors” means stream and “mölla” means mill) at Österlen one hour drive from home. Here is a detail from the rathewr small waterfall at this very nice site.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Any comments are welcome! I wanted to show the contrast between the solid rock and the flowing water. I tried to balance the visual weight of the black static rock and the white dynamic water. Important in my composition is also the combination the vertical water curtain and the more diagonal water flow inside and below the curtain. I think these diagonal lines gives a visual flow downwards to the right and then back to the LLC and finally upwards following the rock.
Technical Details
0.13 sec., f/8, ISO 200 (base ISO), 40-150 mm lens @ 67 mm (134 mm equiv.), Olympus OM-D EM-1X camera, tripod, cable release
Hi Ola,
that’s a really beautiful small scene. You have chosen a perfect shutter speed.
You did a really great job here. The water curtain is just opaque enough to show the right amount of detail behind it. I love all those diagonals and patterns.
At first, I wondered how the image would look if you had used a CPL here. But now I find that the reflections add something to the image.
But the left dark area distracts my eye a little bit. It looks like you have completely eliminated the blue tones in the light area of the image and left some saturation in the blue tones of the rest of the image. This looks a bit unnatural in my eyes.
Love this image for all the reasons you chose to make it. The stone on the left grounds the picture with its dark shadows and vigorous texture. I do agree with @Jens_Ober that desaturating the blues in the stone would help it along. The diagonals moving from left to right across the falls are outstanding - very wraith-like (ghost-like) in a way that seems to animate these falls with supernatural power. I would be tempted, however, to crop a little tighter from the right. I find that , dynamically, the far right of the frame kind of peters out where the falls straighten. I have posted a slight rework where I have desaturated the rock somewhat (but not the falls themselves) and cropped a bit tighter from the right. I’ve posted the rework along side your original so you can pop back and forth between them and see for yourself if there is anything in this that might be useful and in accordance with your vision. Really well seen and executed.
I actually prefer the dark rocks the most. They have a richness in texture and are visually alive. As we go towards the right the light becomes flat in all that white and the image becomes less interesting. That seems to be a problem with most water scenes taken with a slow shutter speed.
Ola, Having almost no knowledge of waterfalls and making images of them. I look at your image as an outsider. I love the light and dark in it. Also the composition. But I miss the noise of all that water.(movement ). Still an image I like!
This image is all about contrast, tones, textures and lines for me. Good of you to see the vertical as well as the horizontal lines in the waterfall. This required great vision. There is just enough of the rock face included to balance this scene. This is really well composed. I might turn this into a B&W since there is very little color on the right 75% of the image and perhaps too much blue as others have said in the black rock although this may not be your intention for the image. I can certainly say I’m not apposed to the blue in the rock on the left at all but a B&W may unify the image a little better. A well made image in any regard.
I often refer to elements in the scene as having “weight” and I totally understand what you are attempting to present with this composition and I think everything balances beautifully.
Love everything about this including the texture and treatment of the water. The combination of flow between the vertical and diagonals makes this intimate scene quite dynamic; the rock anchoring the scene.
Regarding the color and the blue - to my eye, the entire rock does not have the blue, so to me the blues are simply and literally reflecting the external source - likely the sky and I think the blue appropriately treated here. If anything, my only suggesion would be to neutralize the tone of the water in the UR where it appears warmer - well, maybe just less blue?
I also liked the reflections making the rocks come alive. Sometimes I take two images, one without a CPL and one with maximum effect. Then I could use layers in post-processing to dial in with the help of blending the most pleasing amount of reflection.
Yes, I also think the blue is natural due to reflecting the very clear blue sky that day. But I will try a B&W rendering and post it when ready. As pointed out the colors does not add anything to the image and both the blue in the rocks and the warmer tones in the water will then disappear.
Kerry, I like your crop a lot and will consider it in the B&W rework.
Thanks for sharing these thoughts, it is helpful for me to evolve as a photographer. I have always liked water scenes taken with slower shutter speed and also will in the future but I would then think more about how/what to include to make the image more interesting.
You have a point here, Ben! The image is more about the composition than to emphasize the noise and movement of the roaring water.
Thanks for posting the B&W, Ola. I like it, but then I always enjoyed the color one, too. Both have a lot of strong points to them and they work beautifully.
