Hi guys
Just wanted to share this photo - I don't need critique, I know it's not a top notch photo. It's a photo from when I didn't know a lot about various techniques and how to take great landscape/nature photos. I actually thought it didn't exist any longer but I stumbled upon it on my computer.
I love how the sunlight hits the waterfall and the gorge during an early sunrise and how the Swallows fly around trying to catch insects for breakfast.
This is by the way Epupa Falls in Namibia, on the border to Angola. A remote but beautiful location. I hope I can to this spot again some day to get a proper shot :-)
Wow amazing view!
Thank you Musashi!
Hi Mikkel,
Interesting location. This image makes me want to see a wider shot. It took me a while to figure out what all was going on with water coming in from all directions. The light is fantastic - gives the image a very painterly feel. The small bird near the center is a distraction, the others are OK. I think the fast shutter was a good choice....I needed the detail to figure out the water pattern. A long shutter would lose the birds and might lose the water flow. Did you try a long shot? I'm curious how it would turn out.
Mike
Hi Michael
Thanks for your feedback. I do have a wider capture and with some longer shutter time as well - but but, there's a sun glare. So I'm not really happy with the overall result. I took the photo with a really cheap Canon Lens, can't remember the specs and my old camera. It was before I really fell in love with landscape and nature photography.
But I would love to shoot at this location again with my Canon 5d Mark III and some great lenses :)
that's what I wanted to see. Thanks!
You're welcome Michael!
I have recently commented more than once that landscapes sometimes need a subjuct. Perhaps usually need a subject. "What the heck", you ask. "The landscape is the subject. This guy is crazy and or just does not get it", you may say. However, think about John Constable's Hay Wain or JWM Turner's train paintings. These are landscapes but feature a subject within the scape.
OK lets look at this photograph which I conside a landscape, you may consider it a nature photograph of course. It has two subjects, my definition of a landscape subject is a focal point of interest or some action within the scape . Here we have a waterfall (action). But it is framing some other subject, the birds in flight but better swooping are both the focal point and in action. As if that is not enough they are nicely framed within the vortext and highlighted by the sun's rays.
I don't know if there was more falls below the frame but if so I would have prefered just a bit more space down there. It does not appear to be perfectly sharp and I suspect it is not just the waterspray in the air and the key bird certainly looks soft. That's a shame. The light on the bird and its position make it a great "subject and one's eye is drawn to it so it needs to be sharp as well as just a bit further from the edge of the frame.
Overall this is almost a superb landscape and nature shot. Good job.
Hi Ian
Thanks for you detailed feedback, lovely to read!
Well, yea - the focus could be better and it's not only waterspray. So you are right! I took this photo without a tripod, I didn't own one at that time and I was still really new to landscape and nature photography.
The waterfalls continue further down, you can see it on the photo which I replied to Michael.
I really appreciate your effort here on the landscape and nature community, thank you! I really enjoy your feedback to all the photos which people share in here.
Thank you Mikkel. Good to know. Keep on enjoying your photography, it is journey and very satisfying, albeit sometimes frustrating.