Effective 2 minute exposure of Great Falls

Thanks to some gifts from family, I had the opportunity to take an Autumn color photography workshop hosted by Joseph Rossbach.  Joe is a professional nature photographer who has won many awards and published several books and is featured on the cover of the recently published 50 Amazing Things You Must See and Do in the Greater D.C. Area. The other 6 or 7 photographers in the workshop were outstanding as well and I was truly privileged to have the opportunity to learn from so many talented photographers.

Yellow Leaves at Great Falls

During the workshop, we photographed Great Falls National Park and Scott’s Run Nature Preserve.  I knew about Great Falls of course, but I didn’t know about some of the areas Joe took us.  There are some great places to photograph the falls up close and away from the popular overlooks.  And learning about Scott’s Run was one of the gems of the workshop.

Red leaves at Great Falls National Park

Fall is my favorite season.  The colors God decorates the trees in are so gorgeous and seem to beg to be photographed.  Yet it seemed that most of my images failed to capture the beauty God provided.  So I was hoping through this workshop I could learn to capture the colors we enjoy with our eyes.  You can be the judge if it was successful.  Perhaps one of the primary things I learned is that “less is more.”  Focus in on the details that reflect the whole scene around you, which motivated the image on the right.

I also had a fun time learning how to use a polarizing filter properly.  I knew about using a polarizer to make the sky darker and bluer, but I had not tried using it on a cloudy day before.  On such days, it works great to reduce the glare from the rocks (and leaves), especially if they are wet from a recent rain.  This came in quite useful since it was cloudy the entire weekend and rained quite a few times.

The image at the top of the post was captured using another technique I learned from Joe.   I captured nine images, each a 13 seconds long.  Joe taught me how to combine these images in Photoshop for an effective exposure of around 2 minutes.  At this length, the flowing, churning, water become very smooth and the clouds and the sky streak away from the camera.  Using another post-processing technique he taught us, called an Orton effect, sometimes knows as a “slide sandwich,” the image is given a glow, as seen below.

Great Falls 2 min exposure with Orton effect

Of course, we also focused on learning composition techniques, particularly looking for leading lines and triangles, which are powerful compositional elements.  Despite the weather, it was a great weekend.  You can see more images from the weekend on my Flickr site.  Also, please be sure to check out my regular website, www.radiantviewphotography.com.  You can see Joe’s images from the workshop on his blog.

Yellow Leaves at Scotts Run

Scotts Run Nature Preserve

Scotts Run Nature Preserve