The Story

Last year I visited the South Fork of Quantico Creek in Prince William Forest Park towards the end of October when most of the leaves were yellow, orange or brown. This year I decided to visit the same location at the beginning of October when almost all the leaves were still green, though a small number had changed color and fallen to the ground and water below.

I had actually left work early and visited this location a couple days prior. At that time I noticed the greenery on the floor of the creek, mostly concentrated where the flow was strongest as it went over rocks. The water level was very low and perhaps that’s why I could see this greenery when I hadn’t in the past. So I returned a couple days later with my camera and tripod and set about looking for compositions that would capture the green below the surface of the creek.

In the end I created two photographs I’m pleased with. One is facing downstream, similar to the photograph last year, though from a slightly different position and perspective. The lower water level also alters the scene a bit, as does the color of the leaves. Here the green of the trees works well with the green below the surface, and the yellow and orange leaves on the rocks and in the water are an added bonus.

I had on my waterproof (or at least water resistant) boots which let me wade into the shallower water. I did have to be careful to find spots with enough sand or small rocks to give me a decent footing. These creeks usually flow over areas of shale-like rock and it can become extremely slippery, and I’ve fallen before so I’m trying not to fall again (thankfully I didn’t fall this time around).

Technical Trivia

If you’re at all curious about the technical aspects of these photographs, they are actually very similar to those of last year’s image. I was shooting with my 16-35 mm lens at 16mm. I was using my Singh-Ray LB Warming Circular Polarizing filter on the lens to control reflections on both the water and the leaves, with the nice side effect of saturating the colors just a bit and slowing the shutter speed.

For the downstream image I used an aperture of f/11 at ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 1 second, which smoothed out the water and blurred the underwater greenery as it was swaying back and forth quite a bit.

Upstream there was more light falling on the rocks and some of the trees, which made capturing a decent exposure slightly more challenging. I decided to create multiple images at different exposures, which I’d later blend together in software.

I had originally wanted to capture some detail in the underwater greenery, which would have required faster shutter speeds, but in the end I preferred the look of these longer exposures.

For post-processing I imported the photographs into Adobe Lightroom and went through my typical processing steps, which entail adjustments to exposure, highlights, shadows, white points, black points, and various other settings. I also did a lot of localized dodging and burning to lighten and darken different areas.

As mentioned above, the upstream scene had a higher dynamic range due to more light hitting the rocks and trees, so I’d shot multiple images at different exposures and merged those together into a single high dynamic range (HDR) image. I processed the HDR in a very natural way, working to keep details in the lighter and darker areas.

Thoughts

My overall goal for both images was to bring attention to the greens and the little bit of autumn color but also keep the scene looking as natural and real as possible. I wanted you to feel that early autumnal anticipation, to hear the rhythmic sounds of the water flowing over the rocks, to feel the light breeze against your face and breath in that wonderful scent of the forest, and perhaps to feel the cool water on your feet as it quickly flows downstream. I love this section of creek, and I’m hoping you can feel that when you view these photographs.

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