There are more than 20 waterfalls along two mountain streams within the park. This one is near the confluence of the streams and was lit by late afternoon sun last October. The photo was taken with a Nikon D5600 with a Tokina 11-16mm lens and a 6-stop ND filter at 11mm, F20, 10 sec, ISO 100.
This is a lovely scene and I like the composition overall. Congrats on a nice image. I think that you could make this even better with some simple editing tweaks. Right now, the brightest parts of the image are in the foreground and off to the right. This pulls my eye there instead of going deeper into the photo to the subject, which is the waterfall in the background. My thought would be to do some selective adjustments in Lightroom (if that's what you use) to bring down the brightness to the right of the water flow in the lower half of the photo, and brighten the area around the waterfall in the background a bit. This will help pull my eye inward toward the waterfall. And in the process, I would probably crop off a bit of the photo on the right side. All the detail there is a bit distracting and unnecessary.
Please see my reply down the string. For some reason it didn't post as a reply
Not a comment – I don't dare it – but a question: Why are almost all the waters in nowadays' captures just looking like pure silk – instead of visibly flowing, sparkling and gargling water? Or otherwise asked: Why do photographers use ISO 100 and need to expose 10 secs, when they could use ISO 800 and expose 1 or 2 secs?
Thanks, great questions! Like most things, isn't it just about choices? Personally, from one day to the next I do things in different ways to see how they come out. And even if I like something, it doesn't mean I'll stop experimenting. If I may, I have a question for you. Why wouldn't you dare to comment?
Thanks Jeff. I appreciate your comments and suggestions. It was strictly an "artistic" decision to leave the upper left falls in the shadow with just part of the upper right falls catching some sun. I did crop on the right side to some extent, but I wanted to leave the sunlight and shadows streaming across the scene to give the viewer a true sense of the low intense sunlight. That said, perhaps this version goes somewhat toward what you are suggesting.
Hi Andrew! Yes, for me, this is working better. The focus is now clearly on the waterfall. But you haven't lost the beauty of the dappled sunlight along the bank of the stream to the right. I really like this photo
awesome photo, it really draws you in to explore it more
Thanks. I appreciate your comments.
Congratulations on getting through Ricketts Glen at all carrying photo equipment. I was there years ago and the steps were steep and slippery with no hand rails and I felt so dangerous that I could not make it through the entire glen and only got to a couple of the waterfalls!