Great Falls

Riding the Rapids Below Great Falls on the Potomac River /  by Todd Henson

A slow shutter speed of 1/60 sec shows the movement of the water, making a more dynamic photograph.

The Potomac River is a popular location for whitewater sports such as kayaking. Between Maryland and Virginia, not too far from Washington, DC, the river narrows and drops in elevation, creating a number of fantastic world class waterfalls.

Riding the wave. A shutter speed of 1/100 sec is a nice balance between slow and fast.

Just below Great Falls the river levels out a bit and provides some nice rapids. This is a great location to ride the waves, with spots where kayakers can maintain their location on the river, as if they were surfing a wave on the ocean but without moving forward.

Slicing through the water. This time the shutter speed was 1/160 sec.

The kayaker in this post was riding in such a location. In one of the photos you can see him smile as he holds his paddle horizontally, riding the crest of the wave. Kayakers were rotating through this location. They would each spend enough time there to get a real workout and enjoy the feel of the river. Then they’d move aside and let another kayaker ride that wave.

Big smiles, enjoying the wave. Shutter speed for this image was 1/200 sec.

For these photos I tried a range of shutter speeds. You can create a number of different looks by changing your shutter speed when photographing fast action like this, especially when water is involved. Use a fast shutter speed and you can freeze the action, showing individual drops of water hanging in mid-air. Use a slower shutter speed and you can really show the motion and action as the water flows around the kayaker, his paddle blurring as he maneuvers it.

A fast shutter speed of 1/1250 sec freezes most of the water, showing individual droplets.

See how dynamic the action can look at a slow shutter speed of 1/60 sec.

If you ever have the opportunity I encourage you to find a location where you can watch and photograph kayakers, then leave a comment below and tell me about your experiences.

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Angular Flow No. 2 /  by Todd Henson

Angular Flow No. 2

The Story

Angular Flow No. 2 is a photograph of water flowing over a dam above Great Falls on the Potomac River, between Maryland and Virginia. This photograph was created on the Virginia side of the river. A previous image, Angular Flow No. 1, was created on the Maryland side. As with the previous photograph, I had been photographing the falls and some of the various birds that congregate along the river.

At one point I ended up at the dam upriver from the falls. For the previous photograph I was standing upriver from the dam looking downriver. For this photograph I was standing just downriver from the dam looking upriver.

As before, I loved the patterns and tones created by the flowing water as it flowed over the dam. And I wanted to capture the interesting forms created by the churned up water below the dam, so I knew I needed a fast shutter speed.

The Technique

To get a fast shutter speed I just needed to open up the aperture of my lens, which lets in more light allowing the sensor to get a proper exposure in less time. As a side effect this also reduces the depth of field, but I chose such a small portion of the dam, and this was intended to be an abstract image, so the shallow depth of field wasn’t a great concern. You can see the water closest to and furthest from the camera is slightly out of focus due to the large aperture.

Using an aperture of f/5.6 and raising my ISO to 800 let me use a fast shutter speed of 1/2500 second, freezing the foaming water below the dam and letting us see some of the interesting patterns.

The Processing

Below is the raw image before I made any adjustments in Adobe Lightroom. It is a color image, but there isn’t much color and it didn’t contribute anything to the photograph so I knew I would convert to black and white.

The original raw image for Angular Flow No. 2

The exposure was a little darker than I would have preferred so I raised the exposure in Lightroom, lightening up the water. I also brightened the whites and darkened the blacks to add a little more contrast. And finally, I converted the image to black and white and adjusted each color channel to balance the tones. In this case there wasn’t much color in the image so I didn’t tweak much.

Angular Flow No. 2 - The final version in black and white

What do you think, would you have done anything differently? Let me know in the comments below.

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Angular Flow No. 1 /  by Todd Henson

Angular Flow No. 1

The Story

Angular Flow No. 1 is a more abstract photograph than I usually create. It depicts water flowing over a dam above Great Falls on the Potomac River, which flows between Maryland and Virginia and past Washington, DC.

I had been on the Maryland side of the river photographing the falls and also some of the many Great Blue Herons that congregate at the falls looking for fish. A little later in the day, while standing on a platform overlooking the dam above the falls I was taken by the interesting lines and tones as the water flowed over the dam.

I liked the look of the flowing water, and how the dam created a distinct line between the darker water above the dam and the lighter water below the dam. I figured a slow shutter speed would accentuate this, smoothing out the water and showing all the different tones, helping with the abstract nature of the scene.

The Technique

I wanted a slow shutter speed but I didn’t have a neutral density filter with me, so instead I stopped the aperture of my lens down as far as it would go, f/36 in this case. Stopping down the aperture limits the amount of light that gets through the lens to the camera sensor. That’s why it lets you use a slower shutter speed, the sensor needs more time to collect enough light for the exposure.

Stopping down the aperture also increases the depth of field. I wasn’t all that worried about the depth of field in this case, but it does help assure the line of water going over the dam is in focus.

Be aware, using very small apertures can also adversely affect the sharpness of a photograph due to diffraction. In this case I wasn’t as worried about that, as the subject was flowing water. But you may notice your photos are a little soft when you use the smallest aperture. If this happens open the aperture a little more.

Setting an aperture of f/36 and keeping my ISO as low as I could (ISO 200) let me keep the shutter open for 5 seconds (requiring a tripod), creating just the sort of look I was after.

The Processing

Below you can see the raw image I started with before making any adjustments in Adobe Lightroom. This is an unprocessed raw, so it is naturally a little flat. I didn’t think the rocks in the background added anything to the image, as I was most interested in the water, itself. So I cropped out the top part of the image. I also noticed the rocks were not very sharp.

The original raw image for Angular Flow No. 1

Next I tweaked the white balance and made various other adjustments to bring out a little more contrast between the different parts of the frame. As you can see below, the blue, reflected from the sky, begins to look a little unrealistic. But I had in mind a monochromatic photograph to concentrate on just the tones and lines so I wasn't worried about how the colors looked, just how the contrast and patterns looked.

Initial color processing of Angular Flow No. 1

Finally, I converted the image to black and white and tweaked all the color channels to adjust the levels of grey associated with each color. I brought up the whites and darkened down the blacks. In the color images the water flow was not quite horizontal, there was a slight upward tilt towards the left. So I rotated the image just slightly to make the water flow more horizontal. I thought about cropping such that the diagonal line of the dam ran from one corner to the other but I actually preferred the look where the line ends just above and below the corners.

Angular Flow No. 1 - The final version in black and white

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Would you have done things any differently?

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