Is moving water too difficult to describe?

[Heroique]

Just curious, I mean this as both a philosophical and technical issue for the landscape shooters around here, so please take your pick – but if you're smart enough, please help us with both sides of the question!

As you compose (or let's say visualize) moving water, are you actually able to describe what you want it to look like, feel like, or be like? If you can, I'm very curious what words (or phrases) you might use, and what technical skills you might apply, so that your final image illustrates the description with success.

For example: "swift," "surreal," or "tranquil," etc.

Does it mainly come down to shutter speed – or do additional compositional choices help moving water match the articulated aims you might have for it?

Or, do you believe the nature of moving water too mysterious to describe to oneself, and too subjective to describe to others – and in the end, a difficult subject whose "feel" you want can only be conveyed (non-verbally) by the final image?

Sample images always welcome!

[Vaughn]

The Waiko River, 1987
16x20 Silver Gelatin Print
4 second exposure (4x5 TMax100)

I had pictured this in my head as having the water mimic, or be the equivilent of, the rock. The water turned out much more fog-like, but I still love the image. Looking down river just after the river emerges from under Franz Josef Glacier. And just for the heck of it, I also linked the photo of the river coming out from the glacier...also a 16x20 print.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Going against the current (pn) trend, I am working on making photos of waterfalls and other natural water passages using speed lights. The more violent the water, splashing, exploding, and the closer the better. I cannot previsualize the outcome of course, but the departure is promising.

Regarding descriptions, I will go aside to include a description involving a former hometown:

Ray Bradbury, 1957 in Dandelion Wine.

... derived from the atmosphere of the white Arctic in the spring of 1900, and mixed with the wind from the upper Hudson Valley in the month of April, 1910, and containing particles of dust seen shining in the sunset of one day in the meadows around Grinnell, Iowa, when a cool air rose to be captured from a lake and a little creek and a natural spring.

Photograph that!

[Heroique]

The water turned out much more fog-like, but I still love the image.

I cannot pre-visualize the outcome of course, but the departure is promising.

Vaughn, the Waiko River image may have eluded your original intentions, but I can see why it still satisfies you. To me, the other-worldly transformation of the water gives the viewer a glimpse into some far-away planet! As Jac suggests – and in my personal experience too – when one tries to compose moving water, it seems that even the best of plans often lead to unexpected "outcomes" in the final image. It's enough to try one's patience! I like to think it's the protean nature of water, allowing it to adopt ever-changing forms, independent of the photographer's intention to capture any one of them.

[Vaughn]

Vaughn, the Waiko River image may have eluded your original intentions, but I can see why it still satisfies you. To me, the other-worldly transformation of the water gives the viewer a glimpse into some far-away planet! ...

The transformation of the image came about during printing. The water just wanted to be fog, not rock, even though some of the swells in the river were becoming sort of like the roundness of the rocks...the image just seemed to want a very light touch to keep to just the highest light values in the water. I had used a red filter as a ND filter (not much color in the scene) to get the exposure to 4 seconds.

Below is another image taken at that time (3 days of photographing this area). It worked out as I thought it would, though the printing has as much, if not more, effort and burning in than the Waiko River image. F64 at 1 second (no filter).

[IanG]

I'm in favour of multiple exposures when one aspect of a landscape image (subject) is moving, whether it's trees in the wind, water, fast moving clouds. I really don't like the surreal tranquil blur (in my own images) which is not remotely realistic.

Ian

[Heroique]

I'm in favour of multiple exposures when one aspect of a landscape image (subject) is moving, whether it's trees in the wind, water, fast moving clouds. I really don't like the surreal tranquil blur (in my own images) which is not remotely realistic.

I sometimes like a touch of the surreal (a slight blur), but not every time.

Here's an example w/ a half-second exposure, giving a very slight, fine-velvet blur to the water – but not enough to distract me.



Come to think of it, I don't think I'd even notice the blur without the stationary rock as a reference. Interesting, but I think this slight degree of blur is what gives some of my images their realism. Sometimes it allows me to "hear" the water's lapping action as it passes by, other times to "feel" its resistance to the obstacles it's flowing against. If this mountain river had been flowing any faster, a half-second might have provided too much motion for the quiet murmur I wanted to preserve.

Tachi 4x5
Fuji A 240mm/9
T-Max 100 (in T-Max rs)
Epson 4990/Epson Scan

[Bruce Barlow]

A really good exercise before spending really expensive film is to use your digicam set on shutter priority and make pictures of running water at different shutter speeds, so you know what they look like. When using film then, you have a better idea of what you want, and what you're likely to get.

Besides, it's a really fun exercise to do.

[Jmarmck]

I was just going to suggest a digital shot to determine what a setting might do.
Heroique, I love the texture of that water, it is like a very shiny silk or the wet skin of a seal. I guess the talent here would be to picture in one's mind eye what the reflected objects would look like on a textured surface. This would not work with white water like Vaughn's shots. I think the idea there would be to see if there were any "gaps" in the seemingly white random spray. While long exposures on running or falling water has its mystique and flavor, sometimes faster shutters or stopping motion is desirable. I, like many millions have SM and MF photos of the major falls in Yosemite. I prefer the ones that capture the colors and texture in the water i.e. fast motion freezing shutter speeds. This is also something the eye does not see in the detail that a fast shutter will.

[Heroique]

Heroique, I love the texture of that water, it is like a very shiny silk or the wet skin of a seal.

Thanks (I think), for your apt analogy means I will forever more associate this print with seals.