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Archive 2014 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?

  
 
kabraxcis
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?


Obviously it would have been better if I knew how to take the composition on-site, but this is what I have.

At the time it looked OK, but I'm thinking that the rock on the right bottom corner is a little distracting

The large falls continue farther to the left, but I wanted to get the small streak of the falls on the right, should I have turned the composition further right? The grounds for shooting this fall didn't allow me to go too much into the water to the right, and to the left was an unclimbable rock, the shot is at 24mm.

Besides composition and where to crop, this is an image that I've edited to my limit, but somehow doesn't feel right/look good. What other edits would you do on it? Original image is posted below.

Note the 2 apparent water splash marks on the lower-middle rocks, those were just a pain and I didn't feel like Googling, so I just tried to mask them all in the shadow of the rock, which works somewhat for small prints/web use but is pretty obvious. Would a healing brush tool work here? I tried some of the options on that tool and it didn't look pretty but I am assuming it's user error.





Edited image







Original image




Oct 17, 2014 at 07:20 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?


A nice scene with a bevy of options for shooting ... a target rich environment.

A few ways to go regarding the crop. I went square, to try and split the diff @ the orientation of the two falls (horizontal & vertical).

Weighting, scale & mass can be a bit tricky with a wide angle lens as the foreshortening effect can come into play at near objects (e.g. your rocks). This can be a powerful tool, or it can be a bit of a challenge depending on where you are trying to draw your viewer. I tried to offset this a bit with tonal values variance so we pull up to the vertical fall a bit more, and down to the rock a bit less.

Hmmm @ resizing on upload/display
When I pulled the image into PS, it displayed larger than on FM. When I uploaded to FM, it displayed smaller (and crunchier) than in PS ... anybody else

Looks like my crop moved on me (didn't notice) and clipped the top of the fall. I tell myself, always crop last (and yet I still process after the crop, which makes it hard to revert the crop and redo post-crop processing). Anyway, hopefully you get the gist @ the square crop.







Oct 17, 2014 at 08:57 AM
Almass
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?


A little bit of this...A little bit of that.....








Oct 17, 2014 at 10:06 AM
ben egbert
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?


Here is my take on it. I wanted to keep that small side falls and the one complete lower right rock so I cropped to minimize the other rock. It could probably be cloned all the way out but I did not bother.







Oct 17, 2014 at 11:05 AM
kabraxcis
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?


Thanks for the suggestions guys, I don't think I ever get the composition right on-site, sad fact.


Oct 17, 2014 at 11:18 AM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?


I don't see a particularly good composition hiding in the image, although some are better than others. Just about everything looks visually amputated. Perhaps if there was more on the left to work with, it could be composed with a great sense of being whole. Or not.... The little sub-falls on the right is an appealing detail, but be careful that such details don't confuse the eye. It's ok to allow the eye to wander to such an element later, after it had had enough time to process the meat of the image.

One good way to approach composition that often works is to ask yourself, what is the visual spot of greatest interest - what do I judge the visual nexus? How can you place the nexus in a dynamic place. The center of the frame, up or across, is a static position. Avoid a static position for the nexus unless you are trying to make a statement that is better said with a static subject. The rule of thirds is one way to find a fairly convention dynamic place to position the nexus. There are sometimes better places. Try to compose the image so the natural lines in the image lead the eye to the nexus. Position the elements to try to create useful flow lines. Placement of bright areas can help guide the eye where you want it to go. Avoid lines and bright areas that lead the eye away or confuse the flow of the eye as it interprets the image. For example, if the nexus is the circled area, the red lines lead the eye to the nexus while the green lines lead the eye away:







Oct 17, 2014 at 03:40 PM
beanpkk
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Waterfall composure, how should I crop?


kabraxcis wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions guys, I don't think I ever get the composition right on-site, sad fact.


Don't feel bad about on-site composition -- it's tough. And as Aunti has very nicely and thoroughly pointed out here and in other places, there is a lot to think about.

I have a theory about photographers: some (like me) photograph 'things' (waterfalls, dogs, bugs, whatever) and others photograph lines and shapes and colors and patterns. I aspire to see what Aunti sees but will probably never reach her level of skill (too far to go and too old!). So next time you're facing a compositional problem with a camera in your hand and a scene in front of you, think about lines and shapes and colors and patterns. And by all means let us see your results!

The only real problem I have with your image is what strikes me when I first see it -- it looks truncated on the left because the falls obviously continues in that direction and the image seems incomplete somehow, or unbalanced. So the goal of cropping it might be to mitigate the unbalanced look which some of the above re-work accomplishes quite nicely. heavens' crop changes the subject to the stream and the rocks, and Rusty's crop changes it to bring out the contrast between the big falls and the little one.

Thanks for posting,
keith



Oct 19, 2014 at 10:34 AM





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