Cascading Brook | Weekly Photo #90
Here in the South of England, the brief wintry spell of weather seems to be behind us (for now), and we are back in double figures. With the slightly warmer weather we had this week, it reminds me that spring is just around the corner, which completely passed us all by here in England last year due to the time coinciding with the first national lockdown. With any luck, the gradual easing will begin soon enough and we can all be out in time to enjoy the colours of spring and warmer, longer days.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 28mm | 0.8 Seconds | f/14 | ISO200
A few weeks ago, just before the “big freeze” I took a wander along a brook, which runs at the base if a shallow valley in my local forest. I started the morning on higher ground and I was surrounded by dense fog with no chance of any photos, so I walked down the hill, into the woodland in the hope that the fog would thin out enough to take some photos.
I found myself down at the brook which had a good flow due to the rainfall we’d had recently. On previous visits, during the warmer months, this tiny stream had almost completely dried up, so it was nice to see so much water creating these small waterfalls as it cascaded down the hill, over fallen trees and branches that lie across the water. I searched for a composition to capture the scene featuring the brook surrounded by the misty, atmospheric woodland and settled on this spot, looking back up-stream.
Purposely setting the camera up high on the tripod, in portrait orientation, pointing slightly downward and along the brook, I positioned the small cascade on the lower third, with the atmospheric tree-lined horizon on the top third. With the circular polarizer attached to reduce the glare and tone down the strong reflections in the water, I experimented a bit with the shutter speed to get the look I wanted and settled on 0.8 seconds as it gave enough detail in the water as it fell over the log in the foreground but without making it too smooth and featureless.
Lastly, I decided to focus stack this photo as I wanted it sharp from front to back. If I had taken just the one photo, focusing on just the cascade in the foreground, with it being so close to the camera, the background would have been soft and out of focus, even at f/14. What I ended up doing was taking 4 different exposures, each one focused on a different point in the photo, working from front to back. I later stacked and merged them in Photoshop, which gave me a sharp photo all the way back to where I would expect clarity to drop away as the mist in the air becomes more prominent.
I finished off the edit by cooling down the white-balance a little and some selective dodging and burning to help bring out a bit more depth in the photo. I’m really pleased with the final image. It represents well, the scene I witnessed while out on that foggy morning in the forest.
Until next week.
Trevor
This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.