Mirrored (with sequels!)

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
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Mirrored
Mirrored2000×1600 1.3 MB

Kristen_SmithMay 19, 2021P1055771
Kristen_SmithMay 19, 2021P10557712000×1333 917 KB

Here’s a color version with the changes proposed by the chorus and a few additional tweaks from me (mostly in some brush work and a couple of eye-magnets cloned out).

Kristen_SmithMay 19, 2021P1055771-Edit
Kristen_SmithMay 19, 2021P1055771-Edit2000×1429 1.21 MB

My last two from my May bushwhacking trip along the Prairie river. It’s the same set of cascades from my very first post here on NPN. This time the rocks were SUPER slippery since it was raining a little. And I had my small tripod so no hanging the center column over the water. Quite honestly I wouldn’t have risked it even if I had that one with me. Wet moss is treacherous and I had already slipped and bashed my knee trying to get those trillium photos. The things we suffer for our art.

On my first post, @Ed_McGuirk suggested a reversal of the image to present a left-right water flow when in reality it is right-left. I liked the idea so did one here and also switched it up to monochrome, something I don’t often do when the greens are this vivid. On the left is the same log as is a foreground element in the other two recent posts.

Specific Feedback Requested

Which do you prefer? Should I flip it and leave it in color? Don’t flip it and change it to monochrome? Both? Any other suggestions welcome. I have a few other views as well. There is more white water to the left, but so much dark water on each side of it that it wasn’t really contributing so I cropped it.

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
Lumix G9
Lumix G Vario 12-35mm f/2.8 lens @ 12mm (24mm equiv.)
f/14 | 1 sec. | ISO 100
Polarizer on tripod

Lr processed for a crop & b&w conversion and a lot of tonal management w/local adjustment brush. The color got the same, but left the saturation fairly low since it was rich to begin with. Lens correction done on both.

@the.wire.smith
1 Like
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If I must vote … it would be … the … top, color image.

I’m trying to think of another image of flowing water taken from the upstream position, looking downstream. The usual perspective is water coming from the upper frame, to the left or right, moving across the view, and spilling out the bottom. You turned that around!

Maybe it’s a north flowing river.

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The colored version works better for me for both the color and the composition. The divided water at the bottom is what makes one image better than the other. The b&w seems a bit busy also. Nice work.

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Both images work. My subjective take on this is that I prefer the color processing, but the flipped composition of the B&W image. Essentially this…

Kristen_SmithMay 19, 2021P1055772_copy
Kristen_SmithMay 19, 2021P1055772_copy2000×1600 1.01 MB

I prefer the color processing because the lush greens of the moss are gorgeous and dominant in the image. In this post, the water has a higher ratio of of white to dark water, as compared to your prior post . The greater amount of white water makes its harder for the light tonality moss to stand out in the B&W. In your prior version the moss was less dominant, and the dark water was more adjacent to the moss on the shorelines, which allowed the moss to stand out better. In this image the moss is more adjacent to white water. To me this current post is more about color, and the prior post was about contrast, lines and shapes, more of a natural for B&W. To me, the strengths of an image should help determine color vs. BW, vs. both.

Regarding the composition, I freely admit that I have a strong personal preference for left to right flow in an image (and I don’t necessarily mean the flow of the water). I like to have the viewers eye move from left to right , and I also prefer stream/river images where the water seems to move that way, and also flowing towards the viewer. It’s a subjective preference, but not a 100% necessity for me. In this image the water is flowing away from the viewer, which is not a deal breaker for me. Given what you had, I think it works. The real reason I prefer the comp of the B&W is that in the Color image the water flow almost seems to be going uphill, in addition to right to left. In the B&W it seems to be going downhill, and from left to right. And given my left to right bias, I prefer the B&W comp because if the viewer is looking left to right, they end on the dominant moss, rather than enter the image with it, as in the Color comp.

Just a personal bias of mine, but everyone perceives images differently, which is worth knowing, and NPN is a good way to sound that out. With images as nice as this, it often gets down to subjective personal preferences, there is no right or wrong.

Full disclosure, I am left handed, which may also help influence my left to right bias.

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Thanks Paul. The green is hard to beat. The saturation & vibrance sliders are at 0.

No it isn’t, it flows southwest, but this section of rough water is only photographable from here and on the rocks downstream from the other two posts in this series. Farther down it smooths out and straightens so that the cascades are obscured.

Thanks @Igor_Doncov - the green version is a bit tighter of a crop and I think leaving the saturation obscures some of the details the B&W process emphasized.

Subjective is what makes us different, @Ed_McGuirk so not to worry. As I explained above, this is the only way to shoot these well up this high and it means perching on rocks above the cascades. Setting up on the rocks downstream and on the left result in the shots from the other two posts. Just how the river organizes itself. Reversing the image does result in something our brains respond to more easily (at least with left to right reading populations) and so I don’t mind doing it when it serves my purposes, but it isn’t a documentary image anymore, which is kind of the point of this project. Peeling off more artistic images is a nice adjunct though and will round things out should I decide to put a book together on this.

You’re right about NPN being a good sounding board and that’s exactly how I’ve approached things with some of my images. The cypress forests especially since I do have a plan for a book for that.

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Hi Kris! I like the bottom perspective best and I like it in color. Not just for the green but I really think it makes the water stand out more too! I like what you did with the exposure /SS on the water! Really nice flow to it!

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Really nice Kris. I love this kind of image. Put me down strongly for the color version. Those greens are just too great! Like Ed, I prefer a left to right flow.

As for the crop, I think there are nice things happening in each version. I love the whitewater coming right out of the LRC in your color version, but I also like seeing the whole beginning of the band of whitewater in the LLC of your B&W version. Is there another crop that is able to keep both of those things?

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I prefer the color version over the black and white. There is not enough interest in the flow of the water to carry the black and white image and it’s very busy. The color version has a much softer feel and the vibrancy of the green is much more alluring and less harsh than the B&W. I tend to like my water images to have the water coming toward me rather than flowing away. It invites me into the scene more if that makes sense. Maybe, because we read from left to right, I prefer an image that takes me through from left to right and from bottom to top. That is a generality for me and not a hard rule though. For this reason, I prefer the flip of the B&W but I would crop off the left edge and eliminate the area of black stream just to the left of the first white water like you did in the color version. Not sure if this is clear or not. Sorry about that. OK, just seeing what Ed did and that’s what I’m talking about. :slight_smile:

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@Kris_Smith … what a great image and conversation. Having just left the Smokies at peak moss color, I’m excited to PP my images from last week and this is very inspiring.

I’ll only add a couple of points. I sure find it interesting that some viewers prefer water coming toward them (my bias), and others like the flow going away. I personally end up shooting WAY more flow towards, but wish I shot more going away as I think the water “pulls” the eye through the image more when flowing away and “pushes” us back when coming towards us.

The L/R flipping of the image is solely a matter of preference as you’re hearing. Some prefer to “read” the image more typically from L–>R and others R–>L. Regardless, it’s hard to argue that we in the West are more compelled to read L–>R. In that regard, my personal preference is for your original post because it causes more eye movement for me from ULC to LRC and back.

Only “critique” for me is to burn down the bright green leaves encroaching from above. Their brightness serves as a bit of an eye-magnet to my eye.

Finally, I often struggle with “leveling” shots like these. @Ed_McGuirk made reference to the water appearing to flow uphill. It does look that way and is a bit disarming if viewed that way. I personally am very careful in post as to how to level shots like this due to the lens distortion “dropping” the closer corner. It’s something I’ve seen in my own work and I try to manage it as best as I can without the image feeling too uncomfortable.

Anyway, thanks for sharing and great conversation…trust your instincts and you’ll come up with all the right answers!

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Thanks so much @Vanessa_Hill, @Craig_Moreau, @David_Haynes & @Jim_McGovern - I truly appreciate your input and viewpoints. Having accomplished, experienced nature photographers to collaborate with is so helpful.

I’ve posted another image - it’s the same as the B&W only in color and worked to improve as per a lot of the suggestions here and a few changes I noticed needed to be made. One was, to @Jim_McGovern’s point, to lower the exposure in the canopy over the water. Also to his point about leveling and lens distortion, I corrected fairly heavily for that in all the images and I use an in camera level in the field as well as checking in post. Does it look slanted? It’s tough with horizons like this, but trees can be a guide as well.

Phew. This is quite a process and one I really enjoy. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to the average photo site these days. Real constructive advice and hopefully improvement.

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The third rendition is the winner for me. I would have never thought to flip it, but it works really well. The rich greens win the day for the color take and the final looks quite good. It does not look slanted to my eye.

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Thanks @Harley_Goldman - I appreciate the feedback. It’s been raining now for about a week off and on so green is something Wisconsin does well.

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A beauty. I had to laugh about injuries. Just shot a bunch on a small stream near me and left with cuts and a bruise on my leg. Heavy moss area, Seems like risk is part of the deal. As long as the gear is not damaged its usually worth it! Last version is best IMO. B/W ehh, not for this one.

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Thanks, Mario. The color version wins by a mile with this one.

OMG I think I’d cry if anything got wrecked. Even though it’s kind of a pain, I always put lens caps on lenses when I’m carrying the rig either on my D-ring that’s on my backpack strap or on the tripod. Doing that saved my lens when a rock I stepped on shifted and I went straight down into a small stream. No injuries except to my pride and a tripod leg acquired a scrape.