I took a very similar photo one week before, as a potential entry for the light and shadows contest. But I liked my entry too much in that challenge to take it out, and thus a great photo goes unused.
Then this challenge came up, so I headed back to Hyde's Mill, at approximately the same time of day. Luckily the water was still flowing nicely, even though we haven't had a drop of rain in that time (I was definitely worried about this during the 40 minute drive).
I looked at my photo form the week before, and wondered how I could improve. Two things came to mind: getting some reflection in the water and maybe changing the angle slightly (aka, walking down the bridge further). The angle thing turned out to be a bust, but the reflection sure adds a lot. Not only does it complete the bottom half of the image, but it also allows the water some place to flow in the frame.
Taking this photo included 3 ND filters. First 2 filters, each 3 stops were added to make the water silky. Then a graduated filter (from 1 stop to 0) was added to help control the highlights caused by the sun filters through the trees.
I really like this end result, and then pulled it into Nik Color Efex Pro to add a recipe I created for a challenge a while back. I added a bit of bleach bypass, which does wonders with the soft filters I also had in place. Then added texture to every place but the water (the texture was an image of a rotting stump I took a few years ago). Finally, I added white vignette (but not heavy handed) to help complete the retro look.
It's been a while since I entered the mill into a challenge.
Statistics
Place: 6 out of 64 Avg (all users): 6.3537 Avg (commenters): 8.3333 Avg (participants): 6.0909 Avg (non-participants): 6.5306 Views since voting: 1262 Views during voting: 177 Votes: 82 Comments: 4 Favorites: 0
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
