Just a quick note to let you know that the redbud in the Merced River Canyon west of Yosemite are at about peak right now. A few have begun to leaf out, but most are prime. I expect they will remain in good condition for the next week or so, but after that will start fading quickly.
Yesterday I drove to and from Yosemite Valley in the dark, but even car headlights were enough to reveal that the redbud are blooming. I’d guess that about half are in full bloom, and the rest should be soon. They’re most photogenic when they just start flowering and before they begin to leaf out—right now for many of them.
March has been dry and warm, but that’s about to change, as a strong and cold storm is expected to reach us Tuesday or Wednesday, with snow levels predicted to reach down to 2500 feet for lower. That cold weather probably won’t affect the redbud much, but might dampen the wildflower bloom in other parts of the state.
Shine Falls Base—Hawkes Bay, by Peter Kent
This week’s image, by Peter Kent of Canberra, Australia, was made in the Boundary Creek Reserve in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand. It’s nice to add a photograph from down under to this series!
There’s something about falling water that holds an irresistible attraction; photographers have a hard time passing by a waterfall without breaking out their cameras. Having lived in or near Yosemite for over 25 years I get to photograph some of the world’s most spectacular waterfalls on a regular basis, yet it never gets old—I still find them fascinating. But Yosemite doesn’t have a monopoly—there are thousands of waterfalls in the world, each with its own unique character and photographic potential.
I’d never heard of Shine Falls before I saw this image, but it certainly looks like a beautiful cascade, and a rich subject for photographs. On Peter’s Flickr photostream you can see a couple of other variations, including an overall view.
That wider view is a pretty good composition as well, but when I look at it my eyes are drawn to the bottom of the waterfall, with its interesting patterns and textures, and of course the rainbow. So I think Peter did a good job of identifying the most appealing part of the scene, the area that captured his attention the most, and filling the frame with just that.
This is the essence of composition: identifying what catches your eye, and eliminating all but the most essential elements. The best images are simple. The photographer’s point stands out clearly without distractions or clutter.
Good compositions almost always have something else in common: a strong, abstract design. Too often photographers become trapped into thinking in terms of subjects rather than designs. When photographing a tree, for example, many people approach the scene with a pre-formed mental image of what a tree is supposed to look like, instead of seeing the unique qualities of the particular tree they’re photographing. To avoid this trap, try studying the tree’s lines and shapes. Think of the abstract designs created by the trunk and branches, then find the composition that presents these patterns in the strongest way. And don’t be afraid to cut off the top or bottom of the tree. The desire to include the whole subject is grounded in that mental image of what a tree is supposed to look like, not in the desire to present the most interesting, essential elements of a particular tree in the strongest manner.
Here Peter wasn’t afraid to cut off the top of the waterfall and focus attention on what he thought was the most interesting part. In doing so he also emphasized the lines and shapes of the subject—the repeating vertical lines in the cascading water, and the small diagonal lines and triangles in the corners.
I think there’s potential for other compositions of this scene as well, especially more abstract images that include just small sections of the fall. In fact Peter said he did just that while he waited for the sun to be in the right position for wider views, but he didn’t post them to his Flickr page.
The light was coming from behind, above, and to the left of the camera. Frontlight like this often leads to flat, dull photographs, but there’s enough contrast here between the white water and the dark surrounding rocks to avoid that, plus of course the rainbow adds a splash of color.
If there’s a problem with this image, it’s the position of that rainbow. Since it’s the only really colorful thing in the photograph, it pulls your eye into the corner. It would be great if the rainbow arced through the middle of the frame. Of course we don’t have control over those things, except to try to be in the right place at the right time.
Here’s where some planning can be beneficial, because rainbows on waterfalls are actually predictable. Rainbows form a circle around a point opposite the sun. Because the sun is always above us, the point opposite it is always located below us, so we usually only see the top half of the circle, which looks like an arch (the bottom half is interrupted by the earth). To find a rainbow in any waterfall, position yourself so that the sun is at your back as you look toward an area with abundant spray. Rainbows are most vivid when they arc through the base of the fall, where copious amounts of mist are generated.
This image was made at around 10:00 a.m. Remember, a rainbow forms a circle around a point opposite the sun, so as the sun rises in the morning, the rainbow moves down, from the top of a waterfall to the bottom. In the northern hemisphere it moves from top-left to lower-right, but in the southern hemisphere it travels from top-right to lower-left. So it probably just slid through the lower-right corner of this image, and was never in an ideal position from this camera position on the morning Peter made this photograph. If he had been able to move further to his left the rainbow would have “followed” him and arced through the lower-middle of the waterfall. I don’t know if that was possible; Peter actually included a photo of his camera and tripod on Flickr, which show their position, but it’s hard to tell if there was any more room to the left. Most likely stepping to the left would have put him in the river!
Time of year also matters. My brain has a hard time wrapping itself around the movement of the sun in the southern hemisphere, but I think that the rainbow would be visible further left, toward the middle of the fall, on shorter days, when the sun would rise further north. The EXIF data says this was made on March 14th, a little over a week ago. Maybe in another month or two it would be in the right place, or again in the southern spring, around August.
Of course we don’t always have the opportunity to plan things that precisely. Peter made this photograph while on a business trip, and tried to take advantage of whatever conditions he found. That kind of flexibility is vital in landscape photography, but so is the ability to plan and try to figure out when the light will be best for a certain image. Often on your first visit to a location you find subjects that would work better at a different time, conjuring thoughts of a return trip.
One more thing about rainbows: they’re actually enhanced slightly by polarizing filters. Rotated to maximum strength, where it darkens a blue sky and cuts reflections, a polarizer will make the rainbow disappear, but turned 90 degrees from that it will make the rainbow a bit more vibrant.
The exposure looks great overall: the water is as light as it can be without being washed out. I might try darkening the brightest strand of water, about a third of the way from the left edge, to keep it in balance with the rest. I like the choice of a fast shutter speed for this image. While slow shutter speeds usually work well with small cascades, as in the photograph by Charlene Burge that I critiqued on February 24th, fast shutter speeds are often a better choice for big waterfalls, as frozen motion preserves the form and texture of the spray.
Thanks Peter for sharing your photograph! You can see more of his work on Flickr.
If you’d like your images considered for future critiques, just upload them to the Flickr group I created for this purpose. If you’re not a Flickr member yet, joining is free and easy. You’ll have to read and accept the rules for the group before adding images, and please, no more than five photos per person per week. I’ll be posting the next critique on March 30th or 31st. Thanks for participating!
My wife and I made a quick trip into the Merced River Canyon yesterday afternoon. We saw some dense but small patches of goldfields, and poppies beginning to emerge. The best poppy location right now is probably the beginning of the Hite’s Cove trail. The areas that burned in the summer of 2008 have some poppies as well, but so far not nearly as many as last year. This week is predicted to be warm and dry, so I would expect that more poppies and other flowers will emerge. It’s unlikely that the display will be as amazing as 2009, but it could still be good. On the other hand, the poppies may be confused by the intermittent wet weather we’ve seen over the past few weeks and never amount to much. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks to all of you who continue to submit photographs for this critique. The Flickr pool keeps growing, and many more outstanding images have been added to the collection.
This week’s photo is by Jason Chinn from the Subway in Zion National Park. I chose it because it’s a beautiful photograph, with many lessons to impart, and also because the Subway is a special place to me. My wife Claudia and I hiked to the Subway back in 1988 when hardly anyone knew about it. Four miles of thrashing through brush and sloshing up the stream led us to this unique and beautiful place—a slot canyon that widens at the bottom into a tube (hence the name). I still have a couple of 35 mm slides from that day.
I like many things about this image, but let’s start with what’s not there. In his comments on Flickr Jason says that this was made on a cloudy day, and he was disappointed that he didn’t find the “Subway glow.” (Here’s one example of this, or go to Flickr and do a search with the words “Subway” and “Zion.”) Personally, I don’t miss that glow in this photograph. The swirling yellow leaves in the water make this image more interesting than most of the other Subway renditions I’ve seen, and the “glow” might have been just be a distraction here.
Jason’s photograph has an appealing color palette, with yellows, rusty oranges, and greens. The composition also has a nice rhythm and flow; the stream coming in from the left leads your eye to the yellow leaves, and then to the tube of the Subway, plus there are many circles and curved lines that echo each other throughout the frame. The swirling leaves add a nice sense of movement.
I appreciate the fact that Jason didn’t try to pump up the color too much. I see many over-saturated, over-manipulated images on Flickr and elsewhere, but here I think the saturation seems just about right, and the photograph looks natural.
One thing I noticed is that the color balance, or white balance, seems a bit too blue. There’s a bluish tint to the water in the lower-left corner, as well as a hint of blue in the rocks near the top of the frame. Also, the bright rocks at the top-center of the photo pull my eye away from more interesting things in the middle of the picture. To a lesser extent this is also true of the bright rocks and water at the left edge. In this next version (Version B) I’ve warmed up the color balance and darkened the top and left sides of the image. (I did this in Lightroom, but you could easily do the same thing in Photoshop.) To me the result seems more coherent:
The top and bottom of the frame still bother me though. The bright rock above the Subway at the top-center still grabs attention, and the image needs more room at the bottom, as the base of the little waterfall in the lower-left corner is cut off, and I’d like to see more of that circle of swirling leaves along the bottom edge. A wider lens would’ve helped, but looking at the EXIF data tells me that this was made with a 17 mm lens, which was probably as wide as Jason could go. Still, just pointing the camera down slightly would have lessened the space devoted to the distracting rock at the top, and shown more of the waterfall and circle of leaves at the bottom. I wonder if it would also have been possible to take a step back. Given what we have to work with here, I’ve cropped this image to eliminate some of the rock at the top of the frame (Version C). I think this works a little better, but I’m not sure. What do you think? And while you’re at it, what do you think of the other changes I made?
Jason says that he used a polarizing filter to cut some of the reflections on the rocks and slow down the shutter speed, allowing him to blur the motion of the leaves (the polarizer cuts two stops of light, so acts like a neutral-density filter). The shutter speed was 2 seconds at f/14 and 100 ISO. A slower shutter speed would have added more motion and accentuated the swirling effect in the leaves. This could have been done by stopping down the aperture to f/22 and lowering the ISO to 50, cutting 2 1/3 stops of light and allowing a shutter speed of 10 seconds.
Despite my nitpicks I think this is a very nice photograph. In landscape photography we often set out with an idea in mind, but frequently the light and weather don’t cooperate. Rather than bemoan what’s not there, look around and ask yourself what is there. What’s special, unique, and interesting about this particular place at this particular time? Jason did just that. He was hoping to see the Subway “glow,” but clouds prevented that, so he looked around, found these pools filled with yellow leaves, and made them the centerpiece of his composition. He may have been disappointed, but personally I like this result better.
We often edit our own images with these preconceived ideas in mind. After spending time and energy to bring a concept to life, it’s easy to believe that the result is better than it is. On the other hand, we’re likely to overlook a photograph that’s didn’t match our expectations. Time and distance help. Days, weeks, or months later we’re better at judging our images objectively.
Thank you Jason for sharing your photograph! You can see more of his work on Flickr.
If you’d like your photographs considered for future critiques, just upload them to the Flickr group I created for this purpose. If you’re not a Flickr member yet, joining is free and easy. You’ll have to read and accept the rules for the group before adding images, and please, no more than five photos per person per week. I’ll post the next critique on February 9th or 10th. Thanks for participating!
I’ve been using Lightroom since Adobe released the beta version in 2006. Over the years I’ve learned many shortcuts, and in this video I share some of my favorite tips – things I use all the time to streamline my workflow:
