Stick in water

[Philip Watts]

I took this shot as I liked the idea of the stick struggling against the torrent of water.

It sort of says “hang on in there”, but also has a feeling of despair as the water is relentless. I did have a longer crop on the left. This stressed the volume of water the stick was facing, but it was also very dark and I think unbalanced the image.

It seems to have turned into bit of an abstract though and I am not quite sure how to view it now!

Over to you!

[JasenkaG]

I like the idea and the way you processed this photo. It does feel abstract but somehow not abstract enough, it belongs to this curious space between abstraction and nature photography. Not sure if I would change anything here.

[Anonymous]

The shape of the stick suggests a Cormorant’s head and beak. Or a title: Please, someone, throw me a rope!

I like the idea as well. When I was first getting serious about photography, I had a notion of putting together a book. It’s title was “A Place to Stand.” I was always seeing these scenes but had place to stand that would give me a clear view or POV. I think this has some of that. I think this would work better at a lower angle–one probably not available to you without putting life and equipment in danger. Still, that might help some. Also, the water at the base is overexposed, robbing it of some texture. Since the stick is silhouette anyway and the fall is high volume, I don’t know that a faster shutter speed would have hurt here.

Other than trying to recover detail in the highlights, you might try an even tighter crop to move the stick closer to a rule of thirds position. If you have more of the fall at the top of the frame, include some there?

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Hi Philip, love the idea in this image. This looks very artistic and kind of abstract. You could slightly bring down the highlights and reduce the brightness very slightly 🙂

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

Ooh, like this one.

[Author]

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