Wednesday, August 5, 2026
I promise, I am going to take a break from doing these blogs and get caught up on some other things soon enough. I was expecting that yesterday’s blog was going to be the end of things for a while, but while I was going back through the images before closing everything down and deleting the unused images, I found one more photo from my time at South Mountains that I really quite liked. It was one that had made it through two rounds of culling but never got processed as I decided to go with a more direct version of the composition and do it as a black and white photo. That was actually my favorite from this section of the stream, so I didn’t make a wrong choice, and I think that it turned out excellent in black and white. However, I had shot this next version with a slightly different idea behind it. I wanted to show more of the flow of the water while still keeping the deadfall at the top of the scene out of the frame. I decided to do this by selecting the 16:9 aspect ratio in the camera and framing it up that way.
This looked really good on the back of the camera, but when I looked at it on the computer, it just didn’t feel as effective as the closer crop did from earlier. I still liked the textures a lot with this scene, so I started to look into how to make the image work better. Please don’t confuse what I just said with “fix it in post.” There was nothing that needed fixing as nothing was wrong with it, but there was something that was preventing it from making that final cut into keeper status. As I looked at it during the processing steps, I realized that while the other images of this scene read well from left to right, there was a difference here that was keeping that from being the case. In the other ones, the visual tension added by having the eyes pursue against the flow of water made those images more interesting. With this cheater pano crop applied allowing more of the flow, the eyes were introduced into a dead area and I found it hard to get past that to see the more interesting part of the frame.
The fix was actually quite easy as all I needed to do was to flip the image horizontally so that the eyes entered the photo right where the action was and the flow of the water carried them through the image. The nice thing about that extra area of white water to the right is that what had been a roadblock for my eyes was now negative space and was quite effective at stalling the eyes so that they turned back around to go to the contrast of the water to the left. The whole image took on a different look and became a much more effective photo when reading from left to right.
This is one of those techniques that I’ve found which works great for many different images. I’ve talked about it with mentorship clients as well as on workshops that I’ve hosted. It is one of those overlooked techniques that can mean the difference between a photo that feels right and one that feels awkward. I know that before I learned this trick, I forced a lot of compositions through that really didn’t work well, and I’m sure trashed a bunch more that would have been great with a simple flip of the image. As long as there is no text in the frame or something else that would give away what was done, this is a great way of changing a photo up without overprocessing it.
In the case here, it allowed me to have one more photo from this section which was looking really good after the recent rains. I’ve seen this area in everything from drought conditions to flood waters. I think that when it looks like this, the patterns of the water are at their best. There is plenty to see, but not so much as to lose the detail. The colors of the rocks beneath the water add just that right amount of visual interest to keep the viewer looking deeper within the image.
That is about all that I have to say about this photo as you have already heard all about the trek and even what I was doing after my time with the moving water. Thanks for dropping by one more time for this simple blog to bring in one more new image from the trek.
Until next time….
Remember to use the code KISER10 to get 10% off your purchase
