“Badwater Lake” by Grant Kaye
This week’s photograph was made by Grant Kaye at Badwater in Death Valley National Park, California. The water in this place may be bad to drink, but it’s good for photography. It’s always interesting to see water in the desert, and this spot often has great reflections, especially with clouds at sunrise or sunset, like the ones Grant captured in this image. It’s easy to see why Badwater attracts lenses.
Composition
With reflection images, horizon placement is a key decision. It’s usually better to avoid putting the horizon across the middle of the frame, as this cuts the photograph in half, and often creates the feeling of two different photographs stuck together. (I pointed out this problem in another recent critique.)
But there are exceptions to any rule. With reflections, putting the horizon in the middle emphasizes the symmetry between the elements above the horizon and their reflections below, and can be an effective way of expressing calm and serenity, or simply creating repetition and a unified composition. Placing the horizon above or below the center can also work: pointing the camera down emphasizes the reflection; pointing the camera up emphasizes the actual objects above the water.
In this photograph Grant chose put the horizon above center and highlight the foreground and the reflection. I often like this approach, as reflections have richer color than the real objects they’re reflecting. Here this arrangement also accentuates the converging lines of the clouds—they all seem to point to a spot behind the peaks in the center of the image. Overall the composition is simple and direct, with a strong radiating design.
But pointing the camera down also introduced some distractions: the mud and what look like two small white feathers, or maybe pieces of foam. The mud isn’t particularly attractive, and I think this image would have been cleaner without it. Perhaps Grant wanted to create a sense of depth, but without the foreground the mountains would look like they’re floating in a sea of clouds, which I think would be a great effect. Plus the mud obscures some of the reflections, lessening the power of those converging lines.
Of course there are always practical issues to deal with. Grant said that he kept sinking into the mud as he tried to set up his camera. He could have eliminated the mud from the frame by stepping forward, but no doubt this would have required getting very wet and muddy, and risking salt water damage to his tripod.
Given that limitation, I think it would have been better to point the camera up. It would have been easy to put the bottom of the frame just above the mud, and include more of that spectacular sky. The converging lines would still be there—just in the sky instead of its reflection.
Another option was to create a panorama. I’ve cropped this photograph to show what this would have looked like. The centered horizon makes this very symmetrical, but emphasizes the arrow-like shapes of the mountains. Of course if you intend to create a panorama it’s better to capture two or more frames in the field and stitch them together in software. A severe crop like this throws away a lot of valuable pixels, and lowers the resolution of the final image.
Panoramic crop
I prefer the first of these two options—pointing the camera up and including more sky—but I think the panorama works also.
Light and Filters
Grant was fortunate to find great sunset clouds. He used a Singh Ray Daryl Benson three-stop reverse graduated neutral-density filter to help balance the exposure for the bright sky and its darker reflection.
Grant told me, “One thing I dislike about this image is that I feel like the filter artificially imparts a pink hue to white clouds. I’m a new user of this filter over the past year or so, and I’m slowly realizing that it has that effect, which for the most part seems to be undesirable to me.”
I wondered about that when I first looked at this photograph. The color of the clouds seems strange and unnatural, especially since the reflection doesn’t have that pink hue.
I also think this is too strong a filter. In real life reflections are never lighter than the real objects they reflect. But here the water is considerably lighter than the sky. I think a one- or two-stop graduated filter would have been a better choice, producing a more natural balance between clouds and their reflections.
With film, graduated filters earned a place in my camera bag because they help in situations just like this: balancing the sky with its reflection. But now I prefer to perform these balancing acts in software. (Here’s a link to my article on Digital Graduated Filters.)
One reason for this change in my workflow is that it’s difficult to decide which filter to use in the field: one stop, two, or three? Soft edge or hard? Not to mention the expense of buying those six different filters. And then there’s the difficulty of actually seeing and adjusting the graduated part of the filter in the field. Balancing sky and reflections in software also affords more control: I can lighten the water just enough bring out it’s color, but keep it dark enough to appear natural.
Many people still prefer to use graduated filters in the field, as this leaves less work to do later. That’s fine with me—whatever works. But be aware that using too strong a filter can make the foreground or reflection unnaturally bright.
I took this image into Lightroom and used its Graduated Filter tool to actually darken the water. I also lightened the sky and tried to reduce some of the pink cast in the clouds. The result isn’t perfect, but to me looks more realistic, and has better color in the reflections.
I used Lightroom’s Graduated Filter tool to darken the foreground and reduce the pink cast in the clouds.
Technical Considerations
Grant used a Canon 5D Mark II camera and 24-70mm lens, with an exposure of 1.5 seconds at f/11, 100 ISO. Aside from the filter issues, the exposure looks good overall. Everything appears to be sharp at these small viewing sizes, but there’s considerable depth in this photograph, and f/11 might not have been a small enough aperture to keep everything truly sharp in a big print. F/16 would have retained more depth of field, and might have been a better choice.
Conclusions
This is a beautiful sunset, with a simple, strong composition. I love the arrow-like shapes of the mountains and their reflections, and the converging, radiating lines of the clouds. I would have tried to eliminate the mud in the foreground, and used a weaker graduated filter, or the software equivalent.
Your Comments
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this photograph. How do you feel about the foreground, and my suggestions for either a panoramic composition or including more sky? Did the color or bright reflections strike you as unnatural? Do you use graduated filters, the software equivalent, neither, or both?
Thanks Grant for sharing your image! Be sure to check out Grant’s work on Flickr and on his web site—he’s made some really outstanding photographs. Here’s one of my favorites. Also, Grant made a beautiful time-lapse video of this Badwater sunset.
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I like the foreground idea. In fact I would have liked to have more foreground actually.
When it is a flat shot straight on, plus a reflection, and nothing else I miss depth in the image.
When shooting this type of landscape I often place the horizon a third from the top and try to add a third of something interesting in the foreground to create depth.
I also try to look for lead-in lines that lead the eye into the image and not so much across the image – like I perceive it to be here.
That said – I confess that my landscape phase is over, so others are better at giving advice
A really nice photo, Grant! Michael, a wonderful critique, as always!
I like the pano crop but like the darkened water. I think the mud doesn’t go with the peaceful scene that exists. But I love the colors in the sky.
As far as grads, I use them sometimes but not with very wide angle shots (I have serious problems with vignetting). I feel like trimming the grad holder just to accomodate one grad but haven’t gotten to it yet. But I also find myself using your digital approach more and more !
I have a que abt the panorama – When you take multiple photos in the field to make a pano, wont the lateral movement cause a shift ? (that’s what happened when I tried it a while ago!) Is this done with a normal ball head or a special pano setup?
Lovely picture and critique.
As you mention, reflections should be darker than real object. The reflected mountains appear lighter than the actual ones.
I’d lean a bit more towards the panorama crop than the original. With a slightly stronger foreground it would be an easier call to keep the foreground. A symmetrical reflection is a bit trite, but this is very well done. Your idea to include more sky is a good one and would likely be the best alternative compared to emphasizing the foreground and the panorama.
The color didn’t seem unnatural to me, as the range of possible colors is rather wide. The reflection didn’t seem unnatural at first glance, but did once I thought about it. It seemed unnatural more because it’s on my checklist of issues than because I really regard it as unnatural, if that makes any sense. Software equivalent of GND rather than actual. GND only works if there’s a clean line, while software is much more flexible, and using software means one less thing to carry.
I share your enthusiasm for Grant’s work.
Well done all around!
I’ll make two points here.
1) Waterproof Boots — Having these with you will allow you to get further out into the water, and crop out the mud by walking.
2) GND filters I agree that they are a pain, but I have been finding that I wished I had used one when I get back and find I’ve blown out some of the sky and can’t get it back with post processing.
After struggling to find the time to spend in post, I’m back to using GND filters in the field. I bought some big square filters by mistake but kept them and have used them without attaching them to the lens. With my camera on tripod and the filter held in front of the lens, I have had very good luck taming the dynamic range. That is not to say that I don’t bracket some shots without the filter. Then when I pull up the images back home, I have a choice to spend more time in photoshop, or less. Almost every image needs some kind of post work, but usually less with the GND images.
Congrats on a spectacular image, Grant … definitely the right place at the right time. I agree with Michaels analysis about composition – more sky would have solved the mud problem without miring yourself in it! Ideally, you’d be capturing various compositions during the event so that you’d have options later, but if that’s not the case, then the pan-crop option is your best solution here.
While in the Everglades last January, I was offered a similar opportunity, only at sunrise. I made several compositional variations, finally deciding on one which favored the sky – the sky, after all IS the subject of an image like this. I also opted out of using a neutral density filter in favor of a 3-exposure HDRI treatment. After HDR processing and tonemapping, I decided that I didn’t like the effect, and that the image did not need it, so I used the three RAW exposures (at -2, 0, and +2 stops) to create a three-layered image, and masked off each zone for best exposure. The -2 stop image gave excellent detail to the brightest band along the horizon, the 0 (‘correct’) exposure was used for the sky, and the +2 stop exposure provided the reflection detail. More and more, I’m finding this to be a superior solution to extreme-contrast situations, and the neutral density filters are rarely used any more. Here’s a facebook link to that image:
Informative and constructive critique, as usual, Michael.
I continue to use graduated ND filters in the field – primarily 2 stop though on rare occasion will use the 3 stop. I much prefer soft edge GNDs; the abrupt transition with hard edge GNDs can be awfully hard to place correctly. I also make use of graduated filters in Lightroom and Photoshop. I think the primary argument for using GNDs in the field is the reduction in dynamic range, creating the possibility of getting more of the image exposed “to the right” on the histogram. And that has a lot of value in reducing captured noise in the lower tonalities.
Thanks for continuing to provide these insightful and constructive critiques!
Frank
Yes, that’s the problem with such theoretical talk! Thanks for contributing to the discussion.
The previous comments are spot on with me as well.
The only thing I would add is perhaps a view on why Grant included the mud. I probably would have done the same for 2 reasons.
1) I wanted to maximize the sky reflections, hence the camera pointed down. The broken appearance of the mud also creates a different texture for the reflections.
2) The mud provides a foreground that anchors the bottom of the shot.
That said, if I had to choose, I’d want the panorama print in my house over the mud.
Thanks very much Foosion, Rosemary, Alan, Frank, Greg, and Eli for taking the time to write such detailed and thoughtful comments. While my opinions are backed with a lot of experience, they still only represent one person’s thoughts, and photography is highly subjective, so it’s great to hear other voices that can fill in the gaps and expand the range of ideas being presented.
I’ll just add a few more thoughts on graduated filters in the field vs. in the digital darkroom:
Rosemary, I totally understand your “struggling to find the time to spend in post.” I struggle to find that time too, and I bet we’re not alone. For me, balancing sky and reflections in Lightroom or Photoshop probably takes less time than fiddling with a graduated filter in the field. But it takes practice to get that quick, and obviously since I do this for a living I get more practice than most people could.
Greg, you’re absolutely right that if you don’t capture highlight and shadow detail in the field there’s no way to get them back later. (Well… the Recovery tool in Lightroom and Camera Raw is pretty amazing in many cases… but I digress.) In high-contrast situations where I can’t capture both highlight and shadow detail in one exposure, instead of using a grad filter I make two or more exposures to ensure that I’ve got that detail in both upper and lower tones, and then blend those exposures manually in Photoshop or with the LR/Enfuse software that I mentioned in my last critique. Again, this gives me more control over the transition area (it doesn’t have to be a straight line, as Foosion points out) and the balance of light and dark. But again, as I said in the last paragraph, it takes awhile to practice the skills necessary to achieve realistic results this way without spending all day doing so.
Thanks again folks!
I would have eliminated the muddy foreground as it takes away from a prestine image. My first impression of this image was that it seemed off, I am not sure if it was the lack of dynamic range or the color not repeated in the reflection. My guess is that it was probably a combination of the two. I use GND filters to tame the dynamic range but I will also take multiple exposures with and without the filter leaving me with many options in post. Sometimes the only way to get a good exposure is to use a GND in the field. If your highlights or shadows are blown out no amount of post processing will bring them back. Some scenes will not allow you to capture their dynamic range in a single image without the use of a filter. I prefer to capture the best image in camera but as you mentioned it is difficults to judge the level of dynamic range supression needed in the field and so the best option is to have many options. I would have taken several hundred variations on a shoot like this and i am wondering if this is typical to your experience.
Thanks Harry – waterproof boots are often a great help, although in this case the depth of the mud might have required some very tall boots!
Ellen, you’re not alone in liking the foreground, as Eli’s comment indicates. But if that’s because the other colors look unnatural, I think those colors were created by the filter. So if Grant didn’t use that filter, and the colors looked more natural, would you still want to see the foreground?
Joe, I didn’t ask Grant about why he included the foreground, but you could be right. Maybe he’ll chime in here.
I like your color/brightness corrections, but I really do like the mud in the foreground. I didn’t think of it as “mud”; I thought of it as “shoreline”, and it seems to frame the photo and do more to draw me into the center of the scene. Without the color and texture of the foreground, the scene’s colors look more to me like some of those old faded slides that are losing some of their color (the pink/blue combo is almost unnatural without something else in the photo), and the texture feels bland. Maybe adding more sky would’ve helped, but I wonder whether I’d have had the same problems with color and texture.
I think so, both because of how it frames the picture and for the different texture. But I’m trying to stretch my imagination here.
I wondered about that when I first looked at this photograph. The color of the clouds seems strange and unnatural, especially since the reflection doesn’t have that pink hue.