A Fascination with Flowing Water – Merced and Yuba Rivers

April 21st, 2010 | Author: albert

Isn’t flowing water fascinating?

I remember as a kid, growing up in the Netherlands, I loved to go visit places like Scotland where creeks and “bubbling brooks” were a must see for me. I could waste away considerable time mesmerized by the flowing water.

Now, living in California, with a wealth of rivers and creeks, I still love visiting places like that. As a photographer, catching the sense of movement is an easily accomplished trick. By slowing down the shutter speed, the movement of water creates blur which gives us that “look”. Often, in forested areas or in deep canyons, this is really easily achieved as the amount of light will be less so selecting a slower shutter-speed will be not be hard. In bright sunlight though, it can be a bit more of a challenge simply because there is so much light, you cannot slow down the shutter enough to get the look without over exposing the shot.

This is where a grey filter can be indispensable as it simply darkens the scene without affecting the colors.

In the following two shots I was lucky enough to be get the look without the need of such a filter.

The first shot is of the Yuba River, just a few miles north of Nevada City in California. After spending a few hours exploring Nevada City, a photographer friend, Ken, and I were all hot and bothered (it was a 105 degree day, or 40 degrees Celsius) and decided to continue going North on the North Bloomfield Rd and see if we could find some relief near the Yuba River.

We got some great shots of the water rushing by, as you can see in this picture. There was a quite a lot of light, but by stopping down to f/22 I could slow the shutter to 1/8 of a second, just slow enough to get that feeling of “flow” in the water.

This second shot is of the Merced river. It was taken late in the day so light was already fading. The metering was 1/3 of a second at f/6.3 – a lot less light!

So which is the better shot?

Personally, I like both, but for different reasons. I believe the top picture conveys a sense of “speed” while the bottom pictures gives me sense of “volume”. Both work.