Rocks at Salmon Falls, MA

[DanK]

I posted a few shots of the rocks below the falls that I took last winter. Today was my first chance to try again. Unfortunately, it was bright sunshine, so I have been working to tone down the effects. I have a bunch, mostly two or three shot bracketed exposures, but I made very little headway now because of a few computer problems, including a disk crash (SSD) that windows fixed and problems calibrating the old monitor I am working on.

Will have to come back to this one and start on others, but all comments welcome.

[Wavelength]

Hard rock with smooth surfaces.... Nice one

[pschlute]

I like the colours and contours here. I feel the left hand part of the picture is stronger than the right (shade).

[Manfred M]

+1 to Peter's comment. Much of the right hand side of the image needs to be lightened up and the shadows in those deep cracks need to be opened up as well.

I might be tempted to remove some of the plants in the image, depending on where you plan to take this image.

[DanK]

Thanks for the comments.

Peter--I agree with you. My original idea was a more symmetrical image with a big part of the right-hand side removed. I left it at the urging of my wife, who likes the shading back into color, but looking at it again, I think my first impulse was correct. Maybe something like this:



Manfred--I don't think I agree. I dodged the right a bit more in the image in this post, but I'm not satisfied with it. Part of the point of the image, IMHO, is the stark contrasts, and part of that is light to dark areas. I have to think more about this. I may also re-edit this using Nik. I don't use Nik much, but this is precisely the sort of image that can benefit from its various contrast tools.

I'll come back to this one, but first I have to wade through the others...

[pschlute]

If you forgive the imposition I would do this with the image:

[DanK]

Thanks. I don't mind at all. The more ideas, the merrier. And after all, this is not an image that has a clear "subject".

I do think I will crop further, but not as far as you have. The 90 degree rotation is a very interesting idea, and I am going to play around with it some more. Some of the images from this shoot, like the one I posted this morning, have a clear top and bottom--water flows down--but this one is entirely abstract.

Here's one rotation that I tried after looking at your suggestion:



one can't get to the rocks themselves; the way is gated for safety because the falls are powerful. I shot these with a 100-400mm lens, some shots at 400. That's my longest lens, but on my next trip, I'll add a 1.4x converter for some shots to get more detail.

[pschlute]

Your image reminds me of some pictures I took in Yellowstone Park over 10 years ago. I cropped them very aggressively so they displayed only texture and colour and little form.

[Manfred M]

Manfred--I don't think I agree. I dodged the right a bit more in the image in this post, but I'm not satisfied with it. Part of the point of the image, IMHO, is the stark contrasts, and part of that is light to dark areas. I have to think more about this. I may also re-edit this using Nik. I don't use Nik much, but this is precisely the sort of image that can benefit from its various contrast tools.

Dan - I don't think I was clear enough in my description. Peter's crop effectively goes somewhat along what I was thinking.

You are shooting is some very hard light and the highlights, shadows and tonality of the rocks seem to clash. Calming the scene and warming the cooler tones of the rocks on the right might be worth considering.

[billtils]

.... Maybe something like this...

Yes - that's superb, and makes the most of the detail and colour in the central curve, and balances the R and L hand sides.

(More images appeared between when I was typing this and the reply got posted - to be clear the comment is about the version in post #5).

[DanK]

shadows and tonality of the rocks seem to clash. Calming the scene and warming the cooler tones of the rocks on the right might be worth considering.

While I agree that the light is too hard, and I am pulling that down somewhat, the tonal and color contrasts are the core of the image. I need to think about this more and maybe to d a test print, but I think that #7 is close to what I will end up with, although I may lessen the effects of the hard light a little more.