I am new to this all and am loving this site. It is filled with absolutely amazing photos and tons of inspiration.

Was out on an early morning hike this past weekend in Harriman State Park NY. I hiked to the top of Bald mountain in hope of a nice sunrise only to be greeted with disappointment and an overcast morning so i raced back down to the bottom to see what the muted light would do for the waterfalls. This is my first attempt at waterfalls. I have no idea what I should be doing for post processing and pretty much just play with the sliders in lightroom until I am more or less happy with the result. C&C is much appreciated.

1.


Harriman State Park - Waterfalls 1

2.


Harriman State Park - Waterfalls 2

3.


Harriman State Park - Waterfalls 3

beautiful

Nice shots. The area is awesome for taking photos. I go there a lot...

I would say you did pretty well with your playing with the Lightroom sliders. These all look pretty nice. One of the key things to look for in waterfall shot that includes the sky is that the sky doesn't become blown out. Usually we try to avoid the sky, because the exposure difference is just so great. But you did really well there, not blowing out the sky, or at least recovering it well when you processed the shots in LR.

Another key to look for with most of us is how does the waterfall look? Is there still detail in the water? Usually we will shoot a longer shutterspeed for a bit of the milky feel, or motion in the water. It's easy sometimes to go with such a long shutter speed that the water totally loses any detail and the water turns to a white blob. You did good to retain detail in your water.

So, nice work on these, I am glad that you are enjoying the site here, and hope to see more contributions by you.

Jim

Nice shots and my favorite is #1. Personally I would have probably cropped out the sky, but that is always a tough call.
Anyway, I really like your set!
Greg

Thanks for the comments all.

Marty, I am really loving this park as I only recently discovered it and am spending a lot of my weekends hiking up there.

Jim, I very much appreciate you detailed comments. Really I have no idea what elements make or break a shot and your comments will help me hone in on issues and improvements for the next time I am out shooting.

Greg, I know what you mean about the small bit of sky in #1. I hemmed and hawed about cropping it out and finally settled on leaving it. When I crop, I am trying to crop to a standard size and there was just something lacking in the crop so I just went full frame.

Here is one more that I took the same day as those above but only got around to processing a bit later. Figured this shot was part of the series and didn't need a new thread.

when I go to Harriman, I want an overcast day, don't really like sunlight, no I'm not a vampire !

I am feeling that Bruce. For the most part I am out in the middle of the day, so overcast days are preferred.