What do you think?

[stevieisballer]

What can I improve on?  Composition, lighting, editing, etc...

[pcgpcg]

There is way too much going on in the foreground for my liking. I would crop out the lower 2/3 of the foreground. Also the exposure on the waterfall in the background is not pleasing to me. The foreground water is much nicer. Hard to get them both so that they are pleasing.

[John R]

It's a nice image.

The colours are way over the top, as is the saturation. You need to bring it to a more natural level. Do you notice the gaudy greens and yellows?

Try a crop near the bottom so that only the vertical yellow rocks are showing. The remaining vertical rocks should help guide the eye back toward the flow of the water and the falls. You may also want to try to burn in the sky a little more, so that it becomes more bluish gray which is already present.

I don't want to take unnecessary liberties with your image, but have you considered other alternate crops of the image? I may get dumped on for this, but that is the way I work and see. I would have taken many alternate versions of this. Why? Because it is such a vibrant scene with so much potential. This is what I mean by cropping; that is, in the field, not in PP. Try to see other ways of how you could have composed this scene or parts thereof. You will be richer for it.

JR

[BobDavid]

It's a neat picture, and a nice take on a classic subject.

[Jeremy Roussak]

There is way too much going on in the foreground for my liking. I would crop out the lower 2/3 of the foreground. Also the exposure on the waterfall in the background is not pleasing to me. The foreground water is much nicer. Hard to get them both so that they are pleasing.

I'd do exactly the opposite. I think the bottom half is a lot more interesting than the top.

Jeremy

[stamper]

As it is, it is a fine image but it is possible to crop it in the middle and have two fine images. With regard to being realistic then I have seen more saturation in real life than what is portrayed here. I respect the posters rendering.

[Farmer]

I'm a bit with Jeremy on this one.  I'd crop from the bottom of the V of the sky down and then from the horizontal rocks up.  Reducing the saturation, I think, becomes less of an issue with the sky removed, although I do think it's a bit over saturated still.  You could even crop the waterfall out completely.  There is a lot of interest in the bottom section with the exposure you have and the water flow - it creates a surreal effect that I find really satisfying.

[brandtb]

The composition elements are nice. The unnatural oversaturation of the greens and yellows especially is really distracting - as well as the extreme harshness of the contrast. The darkest shadows are nearly crushed making the lower part of the frame hard to focus on and ponderous - zones of darkness and dark shapes that don't support anything in the image.  I think slow shutters on moving water are successful about 50% of the time. In this case in the lower portion of the frame has these meandering swirls and bands of milky white that look like software "illustration" that are distracting from the overall and become another story. Perhaps you have some other frames shot with faster shutter - could be comp'd into the lower portion of this frame? By the bye I would always should several frames at different shutter speeds for something like this  - just so one isn't stuck. Also, I would look at it with the lowest horizontal band of rock cropped out.

[RSL]

Welcome to LuLa, Steve. I think -- that you need to spend time studying the great visual artists, painters especially if you're planning to do more of this kind of thing.

[stevieisballer]

Thank you for all of the knowledge!  It is amazing to see so many different perspectives, and I now can go back to Lightroom to tweak and experiment quite a bit.


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[stamper]

This image is a long exposure, therefore expecting it to be realistic
is unrealistic? Imo it is an artistic rendering and should be seen as such? 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Too dark, too contrasty, too saturated, too much of everything.

Welcome to LuLa

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

Hi Stevie and welcome aboard.

First things first, you need to decide what your subject is and then isolate it from the clutter of the background, is it the cascade waterfall, or is the rocks in the stream in the foreground, or is it the wooded area and sky etc? I think you have tried to shoot it all in a single shot and that way with so much detail, it starts to look a little cluttered and confused.

I think what may have given you a much more satisfying image, is if you had stood near to the water flowing over the rock middle lower right and shot up towards the larger cascade, which would have allowed you to excluded the bright sky at the same time.

A good tip with busy scenes like this, is to shoot it as you first see it and then move in a little closer and shoot it again and then closer and closer until you can't get any closer, then review your images and decide which vantage point best describes the scene to you, then go back to the beginning and shoot it again and again, until you have something that really speaks to you.

Dave

[stevieisballer]

Hi Stevie and welcome aboard.

First things first, you need to decide what your subject is and then isolate it from the clutter of the background, is it the cascade waterfall, or is the rocks in the stream in the foreground, or is it the wooded area and sky etc? I think you have tried to shoot it all in a single shot and that way with so much detail, it starts to look a little cluttered and confused.

I think what may have given you a much more satisfying image, is if you had stood near to the water flowing over the rock middle lower right and shot up towards the larger cascade, which would have allowed you to excluded the bright sky at the same time.

A good tip with busy scenes like this, is to shoot it as you first see it and then move in a little closer and shoot it again and then closer and closer until you can't get any closer, then review your images and decide which vantage point best describes the scene to you, then go back to the beginning and shoot it again and again, until you have something that really speaks to you.

Dave

Thanks for the feedback, I did shoot this other composition below which I think is much less busy.  Would you say this one is better because it is more simple? 



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[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I would say so.

[drmike]

Would it be worth converting them both to mono and comparing the two compositions?

[luxborealis]

Too dark, too contrasty, too saturated, too much of everything.

Welcome to LuLa

+1