Nancy shares a little of what is involved in making a challenging photo look easy.
Silky waterfall in North Carolina. This photograph was a lot more challenging to make than it looks. Photo: © Nancy Rommes
On a cloudy bright day in the mountains of North Carolina, Nancy and I followed a trail through the hardwood forest that gradually dropped to a boulder-strewn creek in a lush canyon. Water flowed over and around massive granite rocks, forming a seemingly endless series of cascades and waterfalls.
There was a lot to photograph, but the conditions were somewhat challenging. High clouds filtered the sunlight but even so, the whitewater was very bright. Getting the exposure correct meant the shadows would be forced into blackness. A separate exposure would be necessary to create shadows with some detail. .
To get the silky look Nancy wanted in the water required a slower exposure—perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 of a second—which, in these conditions, would require a neutral density filter.
Lastly, the breeze created by the moving water generated a breeze that moved and burred the leaves in upper pat of the photo. That called for a separate exposure, at a faster shutter speed, to stop the leaves from moving.
Finally, in the computer, the three separate exposures for the water, shadows, and leaves would have to be blended seamlessly in Photoshop® to create the final photo.
The following short video shows the environment and the areas in the scene that were modified for the final.
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