Critique my waterfall/rainbow shot?

[jbaseball2001]

Hi All,

I am very new to the landscape world of photography and posted another critique request the other day and was very honored to have received such great advice.

I am hopeful that some might provide some honest and critcal comments on the photo below. It was an incredibly difficult shot to expose (for me anyway) with the back of the photo in harsh, direct sun, and the foreground obviously heavily shaded.

There is a local fair coming up with a photo competition for landscapes ($3 to enter a shot, and you win a whopping $25 if you are best of show....so nothing big).

Which leads to: does this shot do anything for you? Is it dynamic enough to not be "just another shot" or is it just ok?

Please be brutally honest...I will be entering the contest with some sort of shots...still working on learning landscapes in general, and I think that simply for the experience it will be worth it, but I also want to make sure I am submitting something that has substance...

Thank you so much for your time and honesty.

[milosh]

As per Critique Forum Rules, you need to include some exif data in your post.

I think this photo has potential, it's a very interesting scene with this wavy foreground and that silky waterfall, not to mention the rainbow. I would like to see the foreground a bit brighter, but I'm not sure how would that work with the bright waterfall. I'm not sure, but I think a different quality and different levels of light would suit this scene better.

[Doug Sundseth]

I like the composition: the stream leads the eye toward the sunlit opening in the trees and the rainbow rewards the journey. (Dang that sounded pretentious. )

I'd recommend trying to brighten up the shadows significantly, though. (I'd use a Shadows/Highlights layer with PS or Fill Light with Lightroom, but I don't know what tools you have for processing.)

I like it quite a bit.

[NikD300]

Beautiful picture. It has the fairy land animated feel to it. I agree with earlier comments, about the bringing out some details in the foreground. As the eye is drawing directly towards the water fall (as its the brightest spot on the pic), the silky foreground is getting lost even though that is the main attraction to the backdrop.

One way is to do some dodging (if you have the tools to do that, which I am assuming you have), on the silky waters and the tree branches or play with highlight/shadows (i have my doubts with this as it can blow out water fall details) or use fill light or a combination of all these.

The picture has a great potential. Would love to see as a bigger picture to see how it looks Good luck.

[Krusty79]

I agree you found a great scene and that the foreground is dark. In addition to that, I would be tempted to clone out some of the branches that are blocking the view of the falls and rainbow.

If you are shooting RAW and bracketing your shots, you should be able to produce jpgs that have the foreground and background correctly exposed. You can then blend the exposures using layer masks.

Good luck with the contest.

[jbaseball2001]

Thank you to all for your comments...

I did bracket...have about 15 shots to choose from with most at different exposure settings...unfortunately I do not know photoshop well yet...though I do have access to CS4 at school....I will have to learn how to do mask layers, etc...

I downloaded a free trial of photomatrix pro 4, literally this morning and below is what I was able to get out of it, not knowing the software at all...

While I am sure that I can do better than the image below, it does represent what the foreground could look like....Granted in this version I lose some of the rainbow...but that is totally due to my lack of knowledge of photomatrix...and of course its a trial so I get the nice logos in there...

I really do appreciate everyone's comments thus far, it really helps to hear from other photographers. I live in a rural portion of Washington State, with no photo clubs in the area....closest is about 70 miles away...

I guess my question at this point is: Do you think it wise to spend more time on this shot to try and get the most out of it, or should I spend the time shooting another scence?

[BexJarratt]

This is lovely scene, I hope you get to shoot it lots.

I'm far from a pro, but I really like the mystery of the first image. Whereas, for me, the HDR has gone too far. The foreground has been lighted too much so there's little sense of anywhere being in shadow and losing that mystery. I would lighten the foreground of the original just enough to bring out a bit more detail, so it's not flat black, HDR with just with a couple of stops more light than the first.

[jbaseball2001]

Thank you again to everyone for your comments...

I have tried to teach myself masking layers in PS the last few days and here is what I have come up with for this shot (combination of 3 images...)

Can you help me answer:

1) Is it over-processed? Or should I push the vibrance more? Should I push the "HDR" more?

2) Have I gotten as much out of it as you think I can based on the composition (not perfect) and samples that you have seen here?

I am heading to more fall this week and am trying to get a sense of how much HDR is used in landscape (talking realistic HDR, not artistic)...It seems like I should be shooting with the thought that I may need to HDR later...is that true for most of you?

I am used to sports photography, where I get one shot and thats it...so tryingt to "see" in HDR is a great learning experience.

Any thoughts to the above or otherwise is greatly appreciated!!!

[Krusty79]

I'm no HDR expert, but usually one of the signs of overprocessing is getting the "halo" effect in your shot and I don't see that happening in yours. Your processing has preserved the rainbow better than Photomatix. While shooting landscapes, I usually try to use my graduated ND filter before resorting to HDR, but in a shot like this without a clean horizon, HDR or exposure blending is a better option.

navcom made the point that landscapes are usually shot better in landscape mode because portrait mode can feel too confining. I would have liked to seen a version of this in landscape mode because the stream feels very confined here.

[jbaseball2001]

Thanks Krusty...I am heading back to this location on Thursday and am hoping to catch the sun at the correct angle to get the rainbow again (only lasted about 10-15 min last time).

I really appreciate everyone's help.

Anyone else have thoughts on the HDR version? Too much HDR? Not enough?