Gorgeous shots. Especially #1. Great composition, fantastic detail, almost hyper real rendition, beautiful tonality. Blending is not at all visible. Amazing work.
Steve, You nailed both falls!! Very nice shot of Soco. Very difficult to get to bottom of this falls for sure. Years ago the trail was barely there and the last time I was there I noticed how they had improved the trail and viewing of the falls from above. Still very hard to get to bottom of Soco especially while carrying camera equipment and watching out for sliding down the mountain the hard way. Definitley needs the Nikon 14-24 reach (hope Canon is working on something like this for us Canon shooters). Very nice PP on both photos. Looking forward to your YouTube presentations on this. Definitely keep us informed on its progress.
Crabtree is much easier. Seems like all you need with Crabtree is a wet summer like we definitely have had this year. Hard to go wrong with Crabtree except for the dynamic range of the falls but you handled that very nicely! Congratulations!! Joey
Thanks Joey! Yeah, at Soco they have a rope that gets you half way down once you're past the platform, after that, you're on your own. Kind of wish they had put the rope on the second half, not the first! (Although there was a snapped rope that may have been in place at one time and that I used to help get myself and my gear back up.
Crabtree was a walk in the park (literally ) by comparison. And yeah, LOTS of water this year!!!
Steve Perry wrote:
@Karl & Bill - I get asked about post processing a lot, but the truth is every image I do is a different series of steps. It helps that both of these waterfalls are totally gorgeous, that goes along way
I'm working on a series of "how to" videos on YouTube, most are planned with a mentality of "This is what I shoot in the field and this is how I handle it one the computer". I don't have much done yet (just started), but it's getting there. You can see my vids here. I'm going to try and post something every couple weeks when I'm in town....Show more →
Hey Steve, absolutely gorgeous work! I am brand new to the FM forums and I can already tell that your work really stands out! After seeing some of your work, I was really curious about some of your processing techniques. I was dying to ask, but didn't know if that was considered good forum etiquette or not (still getting a feel for how the forum community works...) Anyway, I say all of that to say I very much look forward to these videos. I find your work very inspiring!
Thanks so much for all the kind words everyone! I really appreciate all your comments Both images have a lot of time and effort involved between them trip, getting the images, and post processing so I'm always VERY grateful for your feedback
@Alan - No worries about asking, I think most everyone here is happy to help. As to my processing, I get asked about it a lot, but honestly I use dozens and dozens of different techniques and tricks. Unfortunately, it's never the same process for any image and the overall effect of all the different techniques is cumulative, so there's not a silver bullet "trick" I can easily explain. I WISH I could come up with a "system" of some sort though - sure would make my life easier during post processing!
That's actually why I'm starting to do videos, hopefully over time they'll pass on a lot of the stuff I do in the field and then back at the computer. Only have two "How To" vids up so far, but I just started http://www.youtube.com/backcountrygallery
I can tell you this - The biggest trick in my playbook is trying to shoot when my subjects look their best. Makes it a LOT easier to produce a nice photo if whatever it is you're shooting looks amazing to begin with. I could have just about thrown a camera at either of those falls and gotten a nice photo - they did all the work, I just showed up!
Thanks Gordon & Bjadelberg! @Gordon - I'm glad it looks natural, it was tricky - the range of light form the top of the falls to the base was several stops. I don't think I've ever done a blend quite like it, but it seems to work. Thanks again one and all
