Photo of the Week 2015-02-23

With all the publicity Niagara Falls has received in recent days, very cold temperatures causing much to freeze, I decided it was time for a trip there and some photography.

the watcher II

One of the challenges of photographing a location like Niagara Falls is to create something interesting, something different from all the tourist snapshots and that can be difficult when access to shooting locations is restricted and so scripted by the walkways, lookouts, barriers and such. Oh ya, and for my purposes, selfies were out of the question and man there were a zillion people standing with their backs to the falls holding phones, P&S cameras, and GoPros, quite a few on selfi-sticks. 

My plan for "different" would be to mount my 70-300 telephoto zoom on my new 7D MkII, allowing me to pick out details of the frozen bits while giving the new camera body a first run. It was snowing a fine snow in addition to the frozen mist from the falls so the improved weather resistance of  the 7DII would come in handy too.

As it was, I shot with the 7DII and tele setup as we walked up the walkway from Murray St. to the brink of the Horseshoe Falls and then switched to the 5DIII with 24-105 for some wider shots as we walked back before going for dinner. Thew resulting set of images included a number of potential candidates for "photo of the week" and as I began writing this blog post I was still undecided on whether I would select just one image or post several form the outing.

Given that I have a few people following the blog who have begun asking questions about my images, process, equipment and other aspects of my photography, I thought I would provide some of these details up front. I shot a total of about 80 images during two separate sessions at the falls, one before dinner, the other much shorter and after dinner to try a few images of the falls under coloured spot lights. I've already mentioned the gear I used and the reasons for my choices. Back at home I renamed and imported the RAW files into my Lightroom 5 Catalogue and keyworded for equipment used, location and subject specifics. 

Next was a first review where I rate candidates for processing 1,2 or3 stars and X for duplicates and deletes. Then I go back through and choose an image to work with. Once I make adjustments for exposure and white balance, I usually apply these to all images from that camera for the day. Then I decide if other processing is required. In the case of the Niagara Falls images, the light was flat, flat, flat so I bumped up the contrast on some and processed further in NIK Color Efex to add some tonal contrast. All images from this shoot got the same treatment in NIK, a program that I love.

That's about it, and this week I'm left with 17 images that make a decent set to show from the outing. This is way more than I normally get but it was dramatic Niagara Falls after all. A few of those images are presented throughout this blog post. It would have been tough to pick just one, but the lead image, "the watcher II" is one of my favourites..

DJE