Which do you like better?

[stripesnspots]

I want to enter a photo of a river in a contest but I'm not sure which one to go with. The first two are actual prints that I scanned and the third is a crop of the first picture. Any comments or opinions are appreciated!

[shesells]

I want to enter a photo of a river in a contest but I'm not sure which one to go with. The first two are actual prints that I scanned and the third is a crop of the first picture. Any comments or opinions are appreciated!

Hey Stripes, I like the first one the best. I never have been a fan of super smooth waterfalls, it just doesnt seem natural to me, so the second one is out. the third, um... not really. As for the first, I think the composition is wonderful and the color of the fall is almost see through. It's a beautiful scene, where is it? Anyway, I pick #1, it immediately jumped out at me.
~ Kit

[villenadecorte]

Awesome shot. Perhaps a little lightening on the foreground rocks? They look like they have a lot more detail than seen in the shot.
All three are great, but #1 is top notch IMO.

Cheers
VD

[Irish]

No. 1 is my choice of the three. The compositision is good and I can see the whole scene with the river and forest in context. I would like it a little more if the skinny tree to the left was cropped.

I like No. 2 as it shows the power in the water up close, but the composition, I feel, lets it down. The water fall is a little too close to the left of the image??

No. 3 seems a smaller and slightly darker version of No 1 and I prefer No1

Looks like a great place to be with a camera or not.

[opus]

#3 emphasizes the lean of the land too much. # 1 balances it out with a combination of the expanse of water to the left and the weight of the rocks below. #2 forces the focal point, not on the waterfall, but on the rocks next to the waterfall, and doesn't let the eye wander like it wants to. (Rocks -- Spray -- Waterfall -- wait, is there more? Where's the rest of the waterfall?)

My vote is for #1 also. It captures the peaceful beauty, and leads the eye to blissfully tumble down the waterfall.

[MaxPower]

Out of the three #1 would be my choice, but I find the trees distracting. My eye wants to continuously go to the trees.

However I really like the fact that you didn't play around with the images in Photoshop. I'm a purist at heart, and I really don't believe in Photoshoping film. To me that means you can take a so so picture and make it good wit little or no effort.

[MaxPower]

There was a comment in another thread regarding my previous post here and I would like to post my reply to the question to clear up any misconceptions.

Quote:

Regarding Photoshop, I just feel that using Photoshop with film, the photographer could come to rely on using that instead of really taking the time to compose the shot properly. That is using Photoshop to adjust levels, or to crop an image to make it better. Things the Photographer should be able to do without the aid of Photoshop. However, adding effects like the one I did below is something that cannot be accomplished with the camera.

Now don't get me wrong, I do use Photoshop, but I try not to rely on it to create good photos.

I realize I'm new here and I really hope I didn't rub anyone the wrong way with my post.

End Quote

If I offended any one with my previous comments, I sincerely do apologize.

[stripesnspots]

These pictures were all taken at the same place on the St.Louis River where it runs through Jay Cook State Park. I wanted to emphasize the power of the water but I really liked the scenery too, so I took two shots. I'm glad now that I did. Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. If I did decide to lighten the rocks in the foreground or crop out the little tree on the left, could I ask a photo lab to do that? My scanner and printer aren't good enough for anything bigger than a 3.5x5 and I was thinking about doing an 8x10.

[opus]

You could ask the lab to do it, sure. If it were me, I'd have them do one copy with and one copy without. I'd pay more, but if it's for a contest, I'd want to have the option to choose the original if I didn't like the outcome of the lab's work.

Do you have a good lab in mind, and have you worked with them before? If not, make sure you ask a lot of questions about their custom capabilities, and make clear to them that you want a "professional" level of service. I had a lab treat my important enlargements as if I was Joe Shmoe off the street asking for one-hour snapshot turnaround. I was very disappointed with them.

[PuckJunkey]

I kind of like the close-up the best of the three. Cuts out a lot of extraneous shapes and details in the background and really focuses on what I think probably caught your eye. I will say you should probably take the original and work the curves a little bit. The water looks almost unnaturally reddish in spots (though it may have been that way in reality)....