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Author Topic: Rapids and Swirls  (Read 3242 times)

John R

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Rapids and Swirls
« on: December 09, 2009, 10:43:34 am »

I wanted to evoke a sense of calm and a painterly quality by using a slow shutter speed. One can literally spend all day taking different patterns of rapids, and almost as long in PP. These were taken at the Forks of the Credit River in Caledon, Ontario.

JMR
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francois

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« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2009, 11:14:33 am »

John,
Good use of long exposure. I can almost hear the soothing/relaxing sound of water.
I have a preference for the first one (the less saturated) but both are extremely pleasing.
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Francois

John R

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Rapids and Swirls
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2009, 11:48:48 am »

Quote from: francois
John,
Good use of long exposure. I can almost hear the soothing/relaxing sound of water.
I have a preference for the first one (the less saturated) but both are extremely pleasing.
Ah, thank you Francois. So do I! I just tried a a little more contrast on the second. It looks less natural but more painterly with more of the underlying colours coming to the fore.

JMR
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wolfnowl

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« Reply #3 on: December 09, 2009, 02:54:19 pm »

Hi John:  I'm with Francois on this one... the one on the left has more of a watercolour (pun intended) quality to it.  Nice work!

Mike.
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Jeremy Roussak

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« Reply #4 on: December 10, 2009, 04:27:30 am »

Quote from: wolfnowl
Hi John:  I'm with Francois on this one... the one on the left has more of a watercolour (pun intended) quality to it.  Nice work!
Another vote for the left-hand one: it's peaceful and I enjoyed looking at it. The other hurt my eyes!

Jeremy
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dchew

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« Reply #5 on: December 10, 2009, 05:47:09 am »

Left one here too; I love the colors.

Very nice.

Dave
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2009, 10:46:06 am »

Quote from: dchew
Left one here too; I love the colors.

Very nice.

Dave

Ditto.
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Justan

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« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2009, 11:26:42 am »

I like them both and if I hadn’t viewed the two side by side I would like the 2nd one more. Because they are side by side I'm obligated to compare. What I like about the first one is the involvement in motion. What I like about the 2nd one is the mix between movement and color. I think the only thing that distracts on the 2nd one is just a tad or graininess. I find myself drawn to this and it takes away from the experience.

This brings to mind the concept of expectations – meaning what people want to see when looking at a photo. But I want to put that comment aside and instead say that it would be a great teaching aid for all it if the John would provide some insight into how he gets the delightfully soft appearing but knife edge sharp results in image after image.

John R

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Rapids and Swirls
« Reply #8 on: December 10, 2009, 06:39:34 pm »

Quote from: Justan
I like them both and if I hadn’t viewed the two side by side I would like the 2nd one more. Because they are side by side I'm obligated to compare. What I like about the first one is the involvement in motion. What I like about the 2nd one is the mix between movement and color. I think the only thing that distracts on the 2nd one is just a tad or graininess. I find myself drawn to this and it takes away from the experience.

This brings to mind the concept of expectations – meaning what people want to see when looking at a photo. But I want to put that comment aside and instead say that it would be a great teaching aid for all it if the John would provide some insight into how he gets the delightfully soft appearing but knife edge sharp results in image after image.
Well thank you all. I do lean more to the left than the right. So maybe that's why you all like the left so much  

For these water images, I simply looked at the rear screen and tried to decide which had too much blur and which not enough. Then I would reshoot and adjust the aperture accordingly. For my taste, too much blur is not good either. I finally found and applied the ND filter, which I had to hand hold, and that only gave me about 2-6 secs, depending in which direction I shot the rapids. If I have a secret at all, it is that I seldom sharpen my images, preferring the "soft" look of the original jpegs. I do not shoot RAW at all. The exception for sharpening is where they are soft in the extreme. I would say, because I did not use a polarizer (don't own a circular one), the images came out soft with a build up of moving water and skylight, and produced grayish white lines. Good for some images, not so good for others. Next time I will use a polarizer, because about 70% of my images came out very murky, like a glaze of milk almost. And because of the inherent high contrast of the rear camera screen, the images appeared fine to me in the field. Then I increase contrast in PP, it brings out the underlying colours, to some extent, while increasing the lines of the white and gray. The mix produced these wonderful painterly looking images. I might add, that the results were best with close up waves and rocks, rather the wide panoramic views of the river, which produced much more traditional looking soft rapids. But I won't forget the polarizer next time! And that too can be be overused, you don't want to eliminate all spectral light as that will produce flat looking results. Some people like those ultra real bold colours. But I use it sparingly, where the subject warrants.

I will add two more. Notice the one that looks very murky, almost like a whitewash on a painting; I would have preferred less blur or murkiness(?) Should have polarized a tad. The other is a simple increase in contrast, which allowed the underlying colours of the rocks and reflecting bank foliage colours to come through.

Hope that helps.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2009, 07:43:47 pm by John R »
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Justan

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« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2009, 10:57:25 am »

Thanks very much for the feedback! I will continue to experiment along these lines.

As another example, in your Badlands of Caledon image, the ground textures have an other worldly appearance, closer to painting than photo. There are several other examples. If you don’t mind, that image is a clearer example of the surface textures you regularly achieve. Care to share on how you done it?

tim wolcott

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« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2009, 01:52:07 pm »

Quote from: John R
I wanted to evoke a sense of calm and a painterly quality by using a slow shutter speed. One can literally spend all day taking different patterns of rapids, and almost as long in PP. These were taken at the Forks of the Credit River in Caledon, Ontario.

JMR
Very nice I like it.  It would work 32x40 very much, the second one would be my favorite and sellable.  Tim
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John R

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Rapids and Swirls
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2009, 06:03:39 pm »

Quote from: Justan
Thanks very much for the feedback! I will continue to experiment along these lines.

As another example, in your Badlands of Caledon image, the ground textures have an other worldly appearance, closer to painting than photo. There are several other examples. If you don’t mind, that image is a clearer example of the surface textures you regularly achieve. Care to share on how you done it?
Honestly, I did nothing to the image. In fact, against my better judgment I sharpened it a tad to enter it for  acceptance at another site. Didn't make it. I am trying to think what may be the reason for the painterly look and the only things I come up with, is:

1) I forgot to shut off camera "shake reduction", and that sometimes produces soft images.
2) There was rising mist.
3) For other images: I seldom sharpen preferring the softer look. Unless the softness is extreme.
4) I Sometimes apply unsharp mask where warranted to bring out the character or mood of a subject.
5) I am sure you are familiar with the Orton process (Gausian blur and sandwiching blurry and sharp images), and I sometimes employ that. A variation on this, is to resharpen the Orton image so that it looks relatively sharp but at the same time maintains a soft painterly quality.
6) Many involve camera movement or double exposures or a sandwich of two or more images.

I am not a master of PP and don't even own Photoshop. All the above techniques are simple and could have been accomplished using film, albeit, with more work and time.

JMR

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