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.
