City Oasis

[FrankMi]

Still trying to get water to look both interesting and lifelike.



For example, what do you think could be done to improve the 'look' of the water sprays and reflections?

[jeeperman]

Honestly Frank, I am not sure. However when I first looked at this immedeiately it felt a bit busy with the background. I think it would be hard to overcome. Although going 2 to1 or 3 to 1 crop to crop the background buildings out would help to focus more on the water.

I do however see a great possability for a water/glass glass/water reflection play shooting more to the left side glass if you can easily go back to this spot.

3to1 did not work after all.

[Ryogenetic]

I think in this instance, if all of the nozzles are spraying concurrently, a higher shudder speed is called for. But I suspect in this case that they fire off individually, perhaps a longer 1 sec+ shudder, and angle the camera back at the glass behind for the reflection and a more animated/blurred.

IMO
Ryo

[FrankMi]

Thanks for your thoughts Paul and Ryo. I suspect it will take some time to perfect what I have for a vision of how water should look so this is but one more experiment in my quest.

In this case I had taken several images at different shutter speeds and attempted to not only capture the detail of the water in the pool in sharp focus but also convey the motion of the spray.

To that end, there is a blend of slow shutter speed (fast water blur) at the nozzles and where the water hits the pool, but as it gets closer to the top of the arch, the shutter speed is much faster so the water is much more clearly defined. The shutter speeds used ranged from 1/50sec (at the nozzles) to 1/80sec to 1/320sec (at the top of the arch). The process was repeated in the window reflection.

Hopefully this is closer to how I actually saw the ebb and flow as I watched the spray nozzles work.

[FrankMi]

This is a slightly different view of the Independence Square Fountain. In this version, the reflecting pool makes it look like you need to swim to the doors of the bank building!

Did I mention that I like to use reflections in my images?

[Donald]

Now, seeing that image in the first place - that's called creative.

I wonder about a crop at the shadow line so that we don't have to deal with that sudden transition from light to shade on the surface of the water. That would then give us something like a 2.5:1 image and would take the water spouts off the centre-line horozontal.

[FrankMi]

Now, seeing that image in the first place - that's called creative.

I wonder about a crop at the shadow line so that we don't have to deal with that sudden transition from light to shade on the surface of the water. That would then give us something like a 2.5:1 image and would take the water spouts off the centre-line horozontal.

Thanks Donald. I see what you mean. Most of the reflections are in the top half and bottom third of the image.

Originally I was viewing the shade line as being on the bottom third, the skyline as being on the top third, and the door frame and fountains as being in the centre third which is why I left the shadow line as shot. I also felt that the reflections in the foreground were more unusual than the typical window reflections.

What if I came down from the top and up from the bottom enough to put the shade line on the bottom third and the far side of the pool at the top third? Perhaps another option would be to either darken the foreground or soften the transition?

[Donald]

or soften the transition?

That would, for me, be the favoured option, if you can make it work.

[WJT]

I could only suggest being closer Frank to the water but who knows what that would look like. You could also capitalise on the reflection in the window more by composing the shot further to the left.