Waterfalls C&C

[RSisco]

Smalls Falls, Central Maine

 

[Melissa Royal]

Absolutely beautiful. Good use of shutter speed and aperture to smooth out the water. The only thing I would suggest is zooming up on the falls a bit more. They feel too far back to me.

 

[RSisco]

Absolutely beautiful. Good use of shutter speed and aperture to smooth out the water. The only thing I would suggest is zooming up on the falls a bit more. They feel too far back to me.

A little more like this?

 

[tyler_h]

Looking at both crops, the first does feel a bit far back. I'd suggest keeping the green and just having less water in front though.

The top step of the waterfall looks blown out to me which ruins it a little as that is part of the focus of the image.

 

[RSisco]

Thank you both for the C&C. It was very helpful. I do agree that the top step was blown out, sadly do to lighting and lack of a ND filter I just couldnt get the perfect shot.

I did purposely take the shot with a lot of the surrounding area to give people a feel of the area, but I do understand what you are both saying. Thanks.

 

[Big Mike]

It looks tilted to the left. When you have pooled water (pond/lake/ocean etc), a tilted photo makes for an awkward image. Our brains expect 'flat' water to be flat and level, and when it's not...it create s visual tension.
Maybe it's just me, but it's the first think that I notice when the water is not level.

Other than that, the photo is of a really nice scene, but I think it could have been better. Firstly, it looks sort of bland. The bits of color that are there (redish rocks and green trees) are not vibrant or saturated. I'm not saying that they have to be vibrant & saturated for a successful image, but usually prefer it over bland.
Also, when you have a shot with this powerful waterfall, it invokes the feeling of energy etc....and I think that strong colors go along with that. If it was a calm pond, then maybe the subdues colors work better...I'm not sure. (As an example of waterfall shots with plenty (maybe too much) saturation, check out my blog post on waterfalls)

Another area that I think could have been improved, is the water in the foreground. It's showing a lot of bright reflection & glare. This is a case where I think that a polarizing filter would have taken that glare off the water and made the foreground (water) look more interesting and less distracting.

 

[RSisco]

Mike, those are some great shots. I was limited to the amount of light and I didn't have a ND lens, after looking at your pictures I will have one next time. This is also my first outting to get some pictures, but I am learning quickly. Thanks for the C&C man!

 

[RSisco]

Thanks again for the C&Cs. Next time I will have a better eye while taking the shots.

Edit: How come the pictures are not automatically resizing now?

 

[Big Mike]

Now that is a much better image.
Including that bright bit of foliage at the top of the waterfall, while cropping out the foreground, makes all the difference.

The viewer's eye usually wants to 'find' the brightest parts of an image (or at least the areas of greatest contrast)...so by having the bright area at the top, you give us a destination / starting point. My eye follows the waterfall up to the top...but because it's a waterfall, it's only natural that I follow it down again....but the bright trail of water leads me up again...and back down. To me, one of the keys to a really successful image, is that you can have the viewer's eye traveling over the image, without it jumping out or without it getting stagnated in a bad spot.

So while this image still doesn't have that 'wow' factor that jumps out at you...I find that I can look at it for a decent length of time, my eye moving around it, picking up all sorts of different details as I go. That makes for a great photo IMO.

This is a great example of finding the photo within the photo. The first version wasn't anything special, IMO, but you managed to tweak it and make it really work. This should be a lesson for all. The only downside is that you've had to crop it so much that a lot of the resolution has been lost, which will hurt if you want to make a print. With practice, you can learn to find the photo within the scene and crop by zooming or getting closer, allowing you to get it right in-camera.

 

[RSisco]

Mike,

Thank you for your C&C. I have found it very helpful. The image shared here is resized for online, my original is still high resolution. I now have this print sitting in my livingroom. Thank you, and the others, again for such contructive C&C. I look forward to future C&C as my photography skills grow and mature.

Rick