Merced Water Study #2 +2

You did a good job with the shutter speed on this, but I find I have a wandering eye on the composition. The water bottom and center engages me, but my attention goes up to the rocks at the top, with more of a back and forth than a smooth flow. Playing with a scroll crop, I might play with cropping the top to just below the big rocks and see how it works. The blues in the water work real well here, processing looks good to me. 

Your SS is perfect and the splash at the bottom is nice.
I think a crop from the top eliminating the boulder would work for me...

Sure, we can try that crop if you like. It will be interesting to see how many prefer the repost.

I agree that these water images seem busy but that's how water is. That's why it's mesmerizing.

Repost much better for me...

Igor,

I love the tumbling Merced and this captures that feeling beautifully.  I think the colors are spot on - at least my desired impressions of the flowing river.

Both versions work for me.  The original post I get more of a sense of the chaotic nature of the water tumbling and crashing over the random granite boulders. It almost seems the turbulent water is going in all different directions - that keeps me engaged and looking to find that "down hill" flow.  The shutter speeds works perfectly here.

The repost works although for me it removes the mystery of the chaotic flow of the water. In the repost it's clear about the flow. I think rather than a drastic crop off the top, I'm wondering about cloning or dealing with just the little bright area of that dark rock up top? Then you don't need to crop - at least from my perspective.

Also, an interesting thought is that with the crop, I'm kinda wishing for a different shutter speed - a longer, softer presentation of the water. Interesting, because it gets me thinking about when to apply different shutter speeds, depending on the intimacy, or broader view... hmmmm, have to think on that.

In the end, I keep going back to the original post.

Lon
 

Really nice action, texture and hint of aqua blue in the water. I prefer the original crop although i could do without the dark upper right corner. Not sure you can do anything about that - maybe dodge so it blends in more.

Another repost based upon Lon's suggestion of removing the white area from the dark area in the urc. I knew someone would bring that up. I used Content Aware Fill for this for the first time. It's not quite as magical as I thought it would be (it kept filling the area with part of the water below) but eventually I worked through it. It almost felt like cheating somehow.

Dave, I'm sorry. I can't remove the dark rock. 

I prefer the first repost. The tighter comp works for me. 

I like the 2nd repost. Yeah, there's a little tiny feeling of guilt removing a patch like that.... I was that way, but then got over it. ;-)

Dave also mentioned dodging that upper rock.  I do think raising the levels there a tad could help. 

Our tastes are all different of course, which makes the world go 'round.  I still like the original framing with some of the tweaks to that upper dark rock.

Makes want to drive up to the canyon.  

Lon

I think I prefer the second repost. The blues and the greens in the water are great and also the warm tones of the rocks. Tumbling water always fascinates me but I find it very hard to organize such a picture. This one is somewhat chaotic as well, but chaos is the essence of these scenes. Since I am not a fan of milky water, the shutter speed is ok for me. A shorter shutter speed would only increase the chaos, now the local flow is slightly smoothed out while retaining the global flow. Thanks for the repost, very instructive.

Igor, the colors are wonderful and I like the 2nd redo very much. It reminds me of a Winslow Homer painting of the coast of Maine. 

I like the water flow you showcased here, not sure about the rock arrangement in the comp.  Somehow if rocks are included, I think they need to work with the composition. I'm running into a similar look to water in an image.  When a slower shutter speed is used, some of the water takes on flow that might not be expected, like the LLC of image.  Almost a backflow.  Can disrupt the flow in an image - feel chaotic.  But that may be the flow you wanted to depict.  Nothing wrong with it, just the feel I get when looking at the image.  Slight cyan or blue cast, maybe due to shade.

I like the sense of bouncing action here, Igor, along with the mix of stones offering stability in contrast to the moving water.  Your ss does a great job of showing the motion.  I like the extra clarity/brightness of the rocks in the 2nd redo.

Harry, I wanted to make a few comments about composition in such images.

If you looked at the portion of the Merced in this image it wouldn't look anything like it. Conversely, if you shot an image of a stream at 0.6 secs that looked like this image you would have nothing but white water and rocks. That was my experience. You sort of have to look at white and clear sections of a stream and try to anticipate how they will look in an image. But you really never know exactly. In fact, I found that shooting the same shot from a tripod repeatedly gave different compositions because water doesn't flow the same in real time. There would be more white next to rock and a few seconds later less white. So creating a careful composition in the normal sense was impossible for me. I did my best by shooting compositions from area to area and later cropping the final image to what looked good. Most images had no appealing crop at all. This one is a crop of about 1/2 of the original.

Incidentally, after moving to Bend I tried to shoot similar images but it was drastically different. The black volcanic rock of the cascades just wasn't as appealing as the beautiful granite of the Sierras. The thin film of algae that grows on these rocks adds the warm colors.

Regarding chaos: wait til you see the next one!

I prefer the version you originally posted. It has a natural feel about it that makes this photograph really sing. I can immediately connect with the strength of both the flowing water and the huge boulders that are offering resistance. The resultant path (so well depicted by your chosen shutter speed) illustrates the beauty of fast currents. This is a true depiction of the complexity that can be observed in nature and I see no reason to simplify the scene (further) in an attempt to make it more appealing.

You have quite a treasure trove of old photos. I can't wait to see more.

Regards,

Igor, This is quite interesting to look at. The rocks are just fine with me and the original post works best imo. The flowing motion looks just great and I love the white, blue and cyan tones as they mix together beautifully. I like what you captured here!!

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI.