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McWay Falls (2010)
Big Sur, California
While photographing the
rightfully famous McWay Cove at Julia Pfeiffer
Burns State Park we heard about a waterfall back
upstream.
We had some time before sunset so headed
inland up the canyon trail with no idea what to
expect.
The canyons of Big Sur are
filled with sweet smelling laurel, sturdy
coastal live oak, patches of glistening poison
oak and, occasionally, a stately redwood grove.
This was one of those canyons.
We wandered along the stream with
sunlight dappling the forest floor.
And before long we came to this
delightful waterfall.
When we arrived the sun was
on the water making it difficult to photograph.
But it had already moved well into the
western sky and the shadows were growing fast.
In due time the light was perfect.
It took a while to find
this composition.
In fact, this was the last one I tried
and the one that worked the best by far. The
waterfall makes a nice S-curve which imparts a
grace and elegance to the image.
The key consideration when
photographing moving water is the shutter speed.
While the gossamer effects produced by
very long shutter speeds are beautiful, I prefer
more texture and definition in my moving water
shots.
So I used a moderately short shutter
speed of around a tenth of a second.
Of course, the best strategy is to
photograph the water at a variety of shutter
speeds from relatively short to quite long and
pick the one you like the best.
The other key consideration was to make
sure there would be no highlight clipping on the
water.
So I gave careful attention to the
histogram to make sure I was capturing
everything.
No other exposure techniques were
required such as HDR because the dynamic range
of the scene was not great.
When I started to work on
this photograph in the post processing phase a
very definite mood began to emerge.
It felt very Tolkienesque.
So I tried to draw that out by using rich
browns in the color palate.
The bright green foliage provided an
excellent accent to the dark browns.
And of course the water itself is like a
stream of radiant light descending through the
center of the frame.
One element that I
struggled with a bit was the huge redwood tree
to the right of the falls.lls.
In one of the early renderings it was
about the same color as the cliff and therefore
got lost.
But that defeated the mood of the image.
The tree needed to be more obvious if I
was to capture the Middle Earth feeling I was
striving for.
So I reworked the tree, lightening it a
bit and emphasizing the red.
Both of these adjustments served to bring
more attention to the tree without distracting
from the waterfall.
So I’m pleased with the way
this has turned out.
It exactly captures the mood I want to
express.
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