Or How I Learned To Shoot Waterfalls

Cheap Italian film and the super wide did a better job than the all mighty Ektar.

As a photographer you should want to photograph water because of the wonderful things it does with light. When photographing water, the first thing you have to decide is wether or not you are going to stop the flow of water or slow it down into a blur. Either way you are faced with your first big problem with water. Water It is bright and reflective. Even on a cloudy day, it will be the brightest object in your scene. Your challenge is to keep detail in the water and also detail in the rest of the scene.

Do your best to meter off the bright water and then over expose it at least 2 stops. I dare you to try even more. The idea is convince your camera’s meter that the brightness of the water is towards the upper range of brightness in the scene. If you meter off just the water without adjustment your camera’s meter will assume that the brightness of the water is the middle brightness in your scene. This is basically my version of Ansel Adam’s zone system.

I was lucky with this image that there was snow on the ground. The snow acted like a huge mirror and reduced the difference between the brightness of the water and the surrounding land. Because this area is well trafficked, there has been considerable resource damage and that has exposed some beautiful roots. It is sad to see the ecological damage but roots are really interesting.