I sometimes tend to go to the same locations over and over again. That’s not necessarily a bad thing until it leads to essentially the same photographs over and over again.
When I go to Collins Creek, I invariably spend most of my of time photographing the waterfalls along the upper part of the creek. I very seldom explore the area downstream from the waterfalls. As I discovered on my recent trip, that has been a serious lapse of judgement on my part.
Walking down the trail that runs along the creek, I soon discovered this area. It felt so quiet and serene, and the light fog in the background trees added to that feeling. At first, I was hesitant to intrude on the peacefulness of the area. But, after a few minutes, I felt compelled to set up my equipment and captured this scene.
I spent a good amount of time processing the file to create the exact image I wanted. With the adjustment brush tool in Lightroom, I reduced the brightness of the background and the areas surrounding the creek while lightening the creek itself. This separated and emphasized the creek from the rest of the scene.
The original aspect ratio included too much of the surrounding area, which I found rather distracting. I experimented with varying aspect ratios using the crop tool, including a 16:9 ratio, before I finally settled on the 1:1 (square) crop. This eliminated the extraneous area on the sides and allowed me to place the creek in the center of the frame to further bring attention to it.
I still wasn’t completely satisfied with the result as the sides and background remained relatively prominent features. So, I added a slight vignette to darken those areas a little more. I don’t usually care for vignettes, so I rarely think about how they can be used to enhance a photograph. In this case, though, it worked perfectly to create the final image.