For many years, It has been a personal quest of mine to take a photo of Archangel falls. I've tried and failed on many occasions. It seems simple enough, but I never found a composition I was happy with.
For those who haven't been to this location, the challenge is including the top of the massive pine tree, along with the cascade at your feet. Just out of frame to the upper left is open sky, and in the past I never could get the foreground to align the way I wanted in a horizontal format. I had to go vertical, and just didn't like the compositions I came up with.
I've become more proficient with rear camera movements over the past several years, and was able to use them to solve my compositional problem. With rear movements, I was able to shrink the top of the composition, and enlarge the bottom of the composition. Doing this brought more prominence to the foreground cascade, and allowed me to fit that awesome pine tree into the frame. I setup my camera quite high to make sure I didn't compress the mid-ground.
Oh, and there is another tricky part about shooting this waterfall -- it's quite popular, so I needed to be the first one at the falls that morning. Bearing this in mind, I did almost half the rugged 4 mile hike in the dark, and hauled ass like there was no tomorrow with 65lbs on my back. I had the falls to myself for quite some time, and was able to make this exposure on Kodak Ektar 100 color neg film during a break in the wind.
Very nice work with this one. That is definitely not a hike for many even with just a light pack and photo gear, so good job on getting there with your 8x10.
Excellent image Ben - and I too enjoy your youtube vids
If I could float a small suggestion - if it were mine, I'd consider taking some of the blue out of the foreground (esp the water) and maybe making the foreground just a touch brighter. Just my opinion and just a minor thought.
