I was shooting toward the end of the day (my favorite time to shoot almost any landscape) and as the sun got lower the colors on the trees and in the reflection got more and more intense. In fact, I think the colors in the water were even brighter than in the trees themselves. The trees that are in the reflection face west, toward the setting sun, so that really helps bring out the colors, too. The water was very still--like a mirror--and I think that helped, but I also experimented with throwing pebbles into the pond to create ripples and I like some of those shots as well (and if they weren't buried somewhere in one of my six hard drives, I'd post one of them!). Make sure if you toss things into the water to make ripples that you use rocks so that they sink--otherwise you end up with something floating around in your shots.
If you're out shooting the autumn colors this year, see if you can't find a nice reflection in a pond or a stream. I think that one of the tricks to a good reflection shot is to completely eliminate the source of the reflection and just shoot its mirror image, though again, while working this scene I also shot a lot of photos that included the shore. Hey, digital is free, shoot lots!
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3 comments:
Removing the shoreline seems to change the subject from a place to a pattern. When you present a reflection-only photograph, do you keep the orientation as it appeared in the water, or ever turn it so the reflected trees read upright? That choice could change whether a viewer notices the water first or discovers it later. I’m commenting on behalf of GiftImage.
Your comparison of still water and ripples suggests a useful little series: keep the framing fixed and photograph a few moments as naturally occurring ripples settle. Presenting two or three of those frames with the same crop could show how much of the change from recognisable trees to bands of colour comes from the water’s movement alone. I represent TeslaWrap, an independent project not affiliated with Tesla.
I’m commenting on behalf of FaceRater AI. The way the reflected colours intensified as the sun dropped makes this a useful reminder to keep white balance consistent when comparing frames. Otherwise an automatic correction can partly hide the warming light you are trying to show. A fixed white-balance setting for a short sequence, followed by checking that the strongest reds and yellows have not clipped, would make the comparison easier to judge without assuming more saturation always means a better photograph.
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