Sydenham River

Exploring the rocks and trees just downstream of a waterfall. Sometimes difficult to get to the position you want. I was drawn to the trees growing on this large rock with the river flowing around. This is part of the Niagara Escarpment and these large chunks have fallen off the cliffs over hundreds and thousands of years.

Specific Feedback Requested

Composition doesn’t quite feel balanced. I’ve tried cropping in from the right to about a 8.5x11 crop which maybe better but still not sure. I liked the soft directional light from the left from an overcast day. Also struggled a bit with the white balance and the greens.

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
Used adobe color profile and increased a bit the luminance of the yellows and decreased the luminance of the green in LR. Vibrance and saturation set to 0. Full frame camera at 24mm with a 24-105 f4 lens. 1/3, f16, iso 320.

@bryannelsonca
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I think your cropped version has more impact, although not quite sure why. It puts the main rock in the center. But I do like it a lot.

I think the white balance and color balance look fine. The shutter speed caught the water just right.

I think it’s due to the bright single tree trunk rising up and out of the frame. This is not an issue when there are numerous trees. Actually it’s not usually an issue when the single tree dominates the image in size either. That would be my guess but am not sure. Sometimes you see bright branches going from the center of an image out to the frame that have that same look.

I was also working this image in black and white and may work a bit better as the difference in tones between the trunk your mentioned and the leaves behind is not as big as the difference in the colors.

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I dunno…I see the issue of the bright tree trunk coming out of the frame as @Igor_Doncov refers to and he definitely has a point. But if I step back and look at what the scene has to offer, I think there is more to from this scene, but my vision would ask for a return to consider a different composition that may not even exist.

I particularly like the way the rock island is framed by the wonderful flow of water. My eye wishes the flow was not interrupted by the rock in the LLC.

As I (tried?) to point out in this schematic, the blue represents what I would change about the comp if at all possible. I’d avoid including the near rock, and move the tripod to the right in hopes of capturing the flow better and placing the island a bit off to the right. This would simplify the composition to fewer elements and make the image perhaps a bit easier to “enter into”.

As for the bright tree trunk in the middle of the island…that’s a tough one, so I’m not sure how i’d handle that, but would include less of it and burn down its brightness, or more of it and include its canopy if possible.

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The WB and colors look fine to me. The water is white with color cast, and the greens look fine to me. Overall I think your processing works well.

I agree with @Igor_Doncov , I think the bright tree in the center is what throws this off visually for me. I think it unbalances things top v.s bottom ( and not left vs. right). It is very bright, and to me it helps lead my eye up and out of the frame. I think the rest of the composition is very well balanced. My suggestion would be crop from the top, and burn down remains of that tree.

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Thanks for the feedback. I came back to this scene after working my way upstream to the larger waterfalls. I waded into the shallow water being extremely careful as I was alone. Fortunately the flow in the summer months is reduced and the depth/current are manageable. Here are a couple of alternative compositions that I came up with. I did initially feel the first comp was good and got a bit too fixated and should have initially tried a wider range of comps. I have a few too many of the inital comp where I was playing with ISO and shutter speed to get the effect in the water that I was looking for.


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So my favorite here is the last one, but I’m a fan of “in your face” water flow coming at me. I like how the rocks frame the falls. The trees become less of a distraction, and can be managed as @Ed_McGuirk mentioned above. Lots to play with at this location!

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Yes there is lots to play with at this location and it is only 15 minutes from my in-laws. I try to get up early and get a couple hours shooting in before the rest of the gang gets going in the morning while visiting. It’s great when you can mix some photography on a family trip and still be able to hang out for the rest of the day.

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I really like this image Bryan! The rock with the trees looks like a boat being pulled down the rapids. Hope you don’t mind, I just did a tiny crop from the top and left, even though I know you said you liked the left, but I thought it gave more motion to the rock boat! …

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For me the last two images, where the trees are on the side, are more effective and cohesive in terms of composition. The scene is more balanced and that bright tree bisecting the top is gone. Trees growing on rocks are tough to shoot, but are irresistible so great job! This looks like a great place to shoot and if you actually like your in-laws (ha!), all the better to visit them.

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Excellent points @Jim_McGovern

Hi @bryannelsonca these lush forest scenes are so hard to shoot! In Texas I often find scenes like this, unique rock, intriguing trees, and a flowing river to boot! However, because of the sameness in color and texture they just don’t render in 2D as well as the look in 3D! It’s such a shame too. I have found that the same spot that isn’t portfolio worth in these conditions does become portfolio worthy with a little fog to help create division between the elements. This is revealed when you converted to B&W as the top 1/3 of the image is just sameness.

The fall could also be advantageous as the leaves finally have some separation! Good thing you can frequent the location!

The reason cropped image feels better than the original is because of the Steelyard principle. With the dead space to the right of the featured rock, there is too much mass to the left of the “fulcrum” and it gives the feeling of unbalance.

When you crop that out, the fulcrum is moved and now the little rock in the left corner and the center rock are better positioned to achieve a more pleasing balance.

I’d like to see more of the interesting trees. I see that it was shot at the widest your lens (my favorite lens!) could good. A 16-35mm would probably work better here and at 16mm or so. You could move closer and then tilt up getting the rest of the tree and not losing any of what you have here.

I think what you are feeling on the white balance is the brown color of the rock. I’m never happy with that color in any of my images. IDK that is. :man_shrugging:

@Jim_McGovern 's suggestions on POV are spot on. If you notice that the weed growing off the bottom left rock actually stop the eye flowing down the river as it bisects that leading line.

I’m glad you kept working the scene and showed us the results! I like those POVs better and it added more depth to the scene!

The horizontal framing seems to be my favorite but again, I think a wider angle would prevail here!

Don’t give up on this location! You found some really interesting elements in a beautiful location.