Taken shortly before I slipped and filled my waders with ice water. I removed several cigarette butts from the rock in the forground. Would it be too much to ask smokers to pack their butts out? Or make them edible?

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), September 08, 1999

Answers

The image looks like it was taken on an overcast day, there are no specteral catchlights on the rocks or water to emphasize moisture/wetness, the highlights in the water are totally blocked, you do have some sembalance of movement in the water, it is not all cottoncandy, I get the impression that your meter reading was not placed on a higher zone like 7/8 for the water highlights, I feel that your shutter speed could be increased one stop more which would have given you a more natural look to the waterflow. Hope you can shoot this on a sunny day when the specteral catchlights can add characater contrast to the scene. Good effort and vision. Pat

-- pat j. krentz (krentz@cci-29palms.com), September 08, 1999.

Mike, while I don't have Pat's expertise in B&W photography and his suggestions sound like very good ones, I still really like this image. The contrast in tones and textures I find very appealing.

What film did you use and what are some of the technical details from the development and printing stage?

-- Jim Erhardt (jimerhardt@hotmail.com), September 09, 1999.

Nice image - B&W worked well for this. I wouldn't mind seeing this with 1/2 or 1 more stops but I suspect you got it right. I think a sunny day would have been the worst time for this picture, because the harsh reflections would have ruined the peaceful mood and given too many distracting areas. All my good waterfall pictures are from overcast days. The only thing I keep trying to do is pick off that little branch at the left side of the foreground rock - my eye keeps wanting to go there. You would have obviously risked life and limb trying to remove that.

-- Rod Sorensen (sorenser@mfldclin.edu), September 09, 1999.

Thanks for your response and advice. Notes: after 7:30pm, sun behind trees. Dry conditions. Spot metered for 18% grey from part of center rock. Tmax 400, pentax 67, 105mm, f16 or 22, exp. Time maybe 15th sec. Although I've read up on the zone system, I'm still training my eye to look for some 18% tone in the picture and then making sure to give "enough" exposure. Darkroom: Ilford Gallarie graded 3. Edge burned about 25%. Scanned on small flatbed scanner which cropped, hence the proportions. I was sorely tempted to remove the twig in pshop. Thanks

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), September 09, 1999.

Mike,

Whether you do it in Photoshop or in the darkroom, the twig has to go! It is too near the center of interest and looks too much like a large piece of lint on the print or the neg., which is why it is driving me nuts.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), September 10, 1999.