"The river is beautiful and wise...
We, we who were, we are the same no longer."
~ David Paul Kirkpatrick
Original Capture
I'm Letting the pictures--PICTURE--do the talking today.
These water abstracts are all of the same original--shown here.
Crop 1
Just the facts this time...
While hopefully the crops I share inspire you to go find your own moving water and play with it until the gods of inspiration shine upon you.
Crop 2
And the basics are...
I shot with an old, used-when-I-bought-it Nikon 50mm 1.8.
These are handheld captures of a minor cascade along Little Panther creek on the 3.5 mile hike to the "ta-da" waterfall everyone walks the trail to see.
Hardly any post- processing added, save for levels and shadow/highlight adjustments and a few color and exposure corrections here and there--because, water.
I was carrying my D7100 instead of my D810, because it's lighter. I carried only my 50mm lens with me because it's the lightest in my kit. No tripod--you get the idea. I'm a lightweight and was hiking 7+ miles round trip. Excess gear wasn't happening.
It was a fun exercise, seeing what I could see with limited options.
The result--at least by my way of thinking--was an inspirational gold mine.
Crop 3
My file properties tell me I shot at:
f16, which is typical when I'm abstracting water currents
ISO 100, also typical when I'm hand-holding long exposure (this is the lowest ISO setting on my D7100)
1/6th of a second (I can comfortably shooting at 1/5th a second, hand-held, but I liked the texture/detail better at 1/6th)
Basically, on Manual, I kept playing with the ISO and shutter speed until I got the capture I was hoping for. No real formula. Just feeling my way and focusing on the lines and curves and color and action of a moving subject.
Crop 4
I didn't know what I had for sure until I got home and could look at it in Photoshop.
But I was grinning like a loon while I shot. Other hikers streaming past me chatting under their breath about what on earth I was doing out on a boulder, so focused on where the water crashed into the basin of this tiny cascade.
This image, by the way, has been rotated from the original 135°.
So, nature abstracts...
They're my thing. Particularly water abstracts.
I could live in this one image, immersed in this beautiful and wise "creek," forever.
And, I assure you, I have at least a dozen more quality options from the same shoot to tinker with.
Different angles, colors, textures, areas that I shot and re-shot until they came to life for me, like a gift from heaven I now get to share.
Here's the series once more: original to final crop.
If you get the chance to play with the technique, I highly recommend!