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Collection: Waterfalls, fresh and frozen, broad and narrow, low and high!

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
PuahokumoaFalls,Maui,21Aug2005(albumen).jpg


Linhof 4x5 Tech V, 360/5.5 Tele-Xenar, medium yellow filter, f:32, 1/2 sec.
Efke PL100, ABC pyro
Albumen print, Strathmore 500 2-ply, gold toned

The brightness range between the near tree trunks and the falls was huge--like an indoor/outdoor shot. The self-masking property of albumen printing, common to all printing out processes like Ziatype and Centennial POP, makes it possible to get detail in the highlights without the shadows completely blocking up. The texture of the paper muddles the scan somewhat.

David has been very modest about this picture. I have seen his originals They are stunningly impressive with great detail and tonalities. Now he actually coats paper with egg white and then before use add the silver sensitizing solution. Pretty clever.

Asher
 
Now he actually coats paper with egg white and then before use add the silver sensitizing solution. Pretty clever.

Asher

Thanks, Asher. I'm not doing anything they didn't do 140 years ago, except for using modern fast panchromatic film instead of slow orthochromatic collodion plates. I'm also using more modern lenses usually, but not always, and usually not the most contemporary lenses. In the heyday of albumen printing (about 1860-1900) there were German factories where mostly women coated paper with salted egg white. This albumenized paper still had to be sensitized by the photographer with silver nitrate before printing.

There is an irony in these Hawai'ian images. I actually use Hawai'ian salt in my albumen prints, which is said to protect visitors to sacred sites and is sometimes given as an offering at Hawai'ian temples called "heiau," and I often photograph these sites. I also do some bird photography in Hawai'i, and one of our favorite places to visit is Ka'ena Point on O'ahu when the Laysan albatrosses are nesting and doing their elaborate mating dance. There are nineteenth century photographs of people collecting the huge albatross eggs on the northern islands of the Hawai'ian chain, which devastated the albatross population, and it is still recovering. Those eggs were collected for their albumen to make albumen paper.

I use chicken eggs and make pastry or ice cream from the yolks, and do my best to watch my cholesterol.

For more information than you ever wanted to know about albumen printing, including some short videos showing the process, see http://albumen.stanford.edu
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Brandon and Mike,

Interesting to go from man built to nature made. Well I guess what we make has to be natural too.

Asher
 
Waterfall thread

I don't know how I missed this thread. It demonstrates great strength, bith in composition and technique. I was particularly struck by Peter Mendelson's contribution. He nonchalantly provides these gems as casual shots to demonstrate his new 16-35 lens. The use of black & white for these seems so appropriate and I particularly appreciate the detail in the shadows and midtones.
 
My first post and I thought I'd start in here :)

This is a picture I took for arts sake, for my own pleasure. I was trying to capture the power of the falling water and ended up with something that actually looked quite delicate and strokeable.
The brown colour is natural to the water and I've tried this image as a duotone but the browness reminds me of a creatures hair so I have reverted back to this one.
Practicalities - Aysgarth Falls, Yorkshire Dales, UK
Canon EOS5D, EF 85mm f/1.2 II
F16, iso 50 chosen to slow things down a bit, giving a shutter speed of 0.5 secs.

Aysgarth.jpg
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
My first post and I thought I'd start in here :)

This is a picture I took for arts sake, for my own pleasure. I was trying to capture the power of the falling water and ended up with something that actually looked quite delicate and strokeable.
The brown colour is natural to the water and I've tried this image as a duotone but the browness reminds me of a creatures hair so I have reverted back to this one.
Practicalities - Aysgarth Falls, Yorkshire Dales, UK
Canon EOS5D, EF 85mm f/1.2 II
F16, iso 50 chosen to slow things down a bit, giving a shutter speed of 0.5 secs.
Hi Christina,

Welcome to OPF, I hope you'll like it here. Are you based in the UK? We have many members from the "island", I am from the "continent" myself (LOL).

The picture is just lovely to look at. I guess it would look gorgeous if printed at a size of, say, 13x19". Did you have it printed? Maybe on fine art rag paper or canvas? Just an idea.

I agree that one should leave the colours in there, looks very interesting as it is. And you have definitely captured the power of the fall and the delicacy of it at the same time. Kudos.

Also thanks for the technical details, it will help me as a starting point the next time I find some falling water somewhere ;-).

Cheers,
 
Last edited:

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
My first post and I thought I'd start in here :)

This is a picture I took for arts sake, for my own pleasure. I was trying to capture the power of the falling water and ended up with something that actually looked quite delicate and strokeable.
The brown colour is natural to the water and I've tried this image as a duotone but the browness reminds me of a creatures hair so I have reverted back to this one.
Practicalities - Aysgarth Falls, Yorkshire Dales, UK
Canon EOS5D, EF 85mm f/1.2 II
F16, iso 50 chosen to slow things down a bit, giving a shutter speed of 0.5 secs.

Aysgarth.jpg
I normally edit out the image to cut down loading time, but this waterfall I want to see twice. Waterfalls and moving water are very impressive. They drown out everything else with a roar or else the water gently bubbles over the edge and one can still hear the birds singing.

Nothing is then so surprising as the frozen waterfall. It is almost silent but still so powerful.

People have different ways of photographing the falls. Somewhere someone realized that getting a slow shutter would allow fine lines to be written on the film giving the appearance of a milky foam with unfathomable blur and detail together implying movement, mystery and beauty one generally sees in images of mist hugging the hills above the Yangste River in China.

Your picture is surprising in the way it is in two very different parts that work so well together. The curved parallel paths of the water is written in bold lines, like the red light trails of thousands of of cars at night hurtling down a freeway. The left side of the picture is a turmoil of churning foam as the falls end suddenly in the pool.

It's to me, a meeting together of purpose and randomness. It's a path that ends but nothing is lost as we know it is going to come around again.

Maybe I read to much in the picture, but the pictures before it, this gives us another magnetic vision of a simple but basic phenomenon: the water fall. For some reason, we seem to have a fascination that will never end!
 

Steve Robinson

New member
Yellowstone Waterfalls

I went to Yellowstone on opening day and there wasn't much for photography. The lighting was flat and there were occasional snow showers. Still I managed to get a couple of waterfalls. I had to climb up onto an eight foot berm to get the little one and shoot over a four foot berm to get Gibbon Falls. Most of the roads had six to eight foot berms so it was like driving in a tunnel. Most of the interesting sites were closed because they hadn't been plowed yet.

Small fall from bridge leading to Artist Point which was still closed.
283037248_aEnQq-O.jpg


Landscape view of Gibbon Falls with some snags in the foreground.
283039476_KkbSv-O.jpg


Vertical view of Gibbon Falls without the snags but not as much of the falls.
283044653_4fASM-O.jpg
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Steve's pictures show the cusp between the remnants of winter snow and ice and raging spring waters.

I have this favorite spot outside of Boulder Colarado that I like to photrograph. It's a challenge in the winter because of treacherous ice and a big drop. This I posted above in post #23.

Here is the pano in color, still assymetical:

Pano - _MG_1938_Color.jpg

©2007 Asher Kelman "Boulder Frozen Falls in Color" Do not copy.

Now the same place in spring, after the ice has melted

2007_1_Boulder_Falls_Pano_Crop_IMG_3116B_W.jpg

©2008 Asher Kelman "Boulder Water Falls in Spring" Do not copy.

There's always a surprise.

Asher
 
Don't know how I missed this thread

Upper Multnomah Falls

IMG_3970_Edit.jpg


Canon 30D w/ 17-85 f/4-5.6 IS f/11 @ 1/50 ISO 200

This was taken in mid-August and the place was crowded with tourists, so I shot this view to eliminate the people.
 
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