Springtime…May Day!…and some of the hefty high country snowpack is starting to melt…the creeks and drainages are filling with froth and fancy.
It is hard to resist trying to capture the spirit of the spring runoff in photographs. But how?
Some things I do:
–Obviously with a tripod, play with a wide variety of shutter speeds from freezing the water (maybe even 1/1000 if fast and close), to turning the water to mist (1/15 to multiple seconds, depending on the speed and distance away).
–The faster the shutter speed, the more water detail you retain. Slower shutter speeds lose detail in the water. Pick a shutter speed based on the effect you want.
–Look for patterns in the froth…or unusual designs, textures, flows…even an unusual object or environment in or around the water (see the last image below, for example). Simply smoothing out the water with a slow shutter speed isn’t quite enough.
–For me, low contrast light is the best (say, an overcast day). A bright sunny day produces too much contrast for what I’m after.
–Another tip worth considering: When the water is fast and high, include more rocks in the scene or you’ll have nothing but a bright, uninteresting, white sheet on your LCD.
–Carry a lens cloth and check your lens often for water spots.
–Shoot from up high, from down low…pick out details…shoot the entire scene. Move around.
–The point is: Experiment! When using digital capture, it’s not like you are burning through your one and only precious roll of 36-exposure Kodachrome. Record a wide variety of scenes and consult the histogram for exposure and the LCD to see what effect composition, perspective, and shutter speeds have on expressing your vision.
Some examples:
First, the big picture…
Springtime, Eldorado Canyon #6. Colorado, 2014
Next, moving into the details…
Springtime, Eldorado Canyon #5. Colorado, 2014
This is one is more about texture…
Springtime, Eldorado Canyon #4. Colorado, 2014
Texture and flow…
Springtime, Eldorado Canyon #1. Colorado, 2014
This (reposted from a previous entry) is a deliberate satire on all those gorgeous, lacy water images with the perfect leaf placed conveniently on a wet rock in the foreground. The sandal was by the side of the creek–I just moved it into the standard “beautiful leaf position”…
The Flip Flop. Eldorado Springs Canyon, Colorado, 2014
NOTE: For the curious, here are the shutter speeds of each of the above images, in order from top to bottom: 0.6 sec, 1/3 sec, 1/8 sec, 0.8 sec, 1 sec. The first four images were made with a 70-200 lens at various focal lengths, while the last image was made with the 14-24 ultra wide angle (full frame camera).
Earlier blog entries on the topic of water: Flowing Water, Lessons Learned at a Waterfall, How do you capture water? .
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2 Comments
these are quite nice too. funny re. sandal.
Thanks, Dana!