Fast Water

When I was a kid I loved going down to the fast water when I was camping in Burleigh Falls Ontario. Sometimes we swam in it, sometimes we rafted, sometimes I accidentally fell down a shute and disappeared for a few minutes...but that's another story. All the time I spent down there I never really understood the raw beauty of the place. There is something so powerful and compelling about water and the path it has carved through these rocks over the generations. I take pictures of it every chance I get, and I've never had two shots turn out exactly the same. These are two pictures I took there this past weekend. The first is of the falls right at the end of the fast water. The other is of the Dam where the fast water starts. Both of these images were very flat and somewhat uninteresting when I started working on them last night. I wasn't feeling too hot and couldn't sleep so I just kind of let my mind wander while I manipulated them. In the end I probably went too far, and created almost what is called an HDR (high dynamic range) photo. I however am very happy with the result. Most of what I did was mask various parts of the image, the forground, the background, the sky, and adjust the brightness and contrast. Both black and white conversions are done with the channel mixer in PS and biased towards the green. I also had to do a bit of a burn in on the water in the bottome right corner on the image of the falls. The whole bottom corner of the image was blown out, and I think it looks much better now. In the end I just hope these images convey the sense of power I feel at this place.