El Manto, Mexico - Secret Waterfall Entrance. Feeeeed me your feeeeedback

Sometimes a cool scene in person is not a cool photo. The background is too disjointed for me - the different colors, the different rock outcroppings that are all different patterns. I think you framed it as you should with the water leading into the picture, I just don't think the raw material for a great picture was there. Of course it's subjective, so if you are happy, that's what counts.

Ask them (strangers) to pose for you. Go ahead -- life is short.

patrick j wrote in post #18670870
Sometimes a cool scene in person is not a cool photo. The background is too disjointed for me - the different colors, the different rock outcroppings that are all different patterns. I think you framed it as you should with the water leading into the picture, I just don't think the raw material for a great picture was there.

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That is exactly what I thought about the image - but I just wasn't able to put my thoughts into words as well as you did.


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Here is if OP is still interested what is allowed in public places in Canada.

I think some are missing how technically difficult it is to pull off a shot like this - particularly if these people were just tasing through. Trying to balance exposure, particularly shutter speed, to blur the water, but to be short enough to not have the people completely disappear is a challenge to say the least. I like the attempt. It may have been better a 1/2 stop faster, rendering more of the people.

I like that it isn't just another shot of this location that has been done over and over again. It's one thing to do a shot and try to replicate wheat others have done. It's another thing completely to try to do something new with a common scene. Again way too much technically correct boring content out there. Maybe I've just been around too long. Trust me, I've taken my share of them. But if I see one more aspen grove or deer in the woods. For a landscape to stand out it absolutely has to have amazing lighting. That exist for about 20 minutes a day. So for the rest of the times you need something else to make images stand out and be unique.

Don't take this as I don't respect those who do standard landscape photography. I get that the journey to the photo is more than 1/2 the experience. And why they love their work.

Long winded way to say I understand why the photographer loves this shot. It isn't a clone of another persons shot. And that is what makes it his. I would love to see it printed on metallic paper.

I like it more without the people, but I agree with Tom that it still looks busy. The green leaves also look oversaturated/neon to me.

joedlh wrote in post #18670320
It's an interesting location.

The blurry people kills this shot for me. Also the printing. I would have waited for people not to be in the picture and cloned out the printing. What is the source of the yellow? It doesn't look natural. Did you boost the saturation?

The People? What people? Are there people in this photo? Okay, I thought I was having a moment there. I see the person , ghost person.

truecolors wrote in post #18682045
The People? What people? Are there people in this photo?

Look very closely at the first photo, near the center. They are blurred. I was going to suggest (a few weeks ago then I forgot) that blurring things is a difficult balance to find, where if you don't blur the subject quite enough it just looks like you don't know what you are doing, and if you do it too much the subject becomes unrecognizable. I think this falls on the too much side where they are so faint that they looked like they walked through the photo without the photographer trying to capture them.