He found my SECRET landscape photography location

hello hello everybody hope you're all doing really well today I'm down at a waterfall called Ammonite Falls it's just a gorgeous little falls not far from Nanaimo. Now who's that I thought I had this place to myself usually I have this place to myself but there seems to be another photographer here I'll zoom in and see who it is. Oh God it's that wanker photographer what's his name Hardcastle he's my arch-nemesis he's always moving in on my secret spots look at him pretty boy can't stand that guy and he's a Yorkshireman to boot (laughing) I'm just waiting for Gavin to see if he does another spectacular fall (screaming) see if I can up the viewership of my videos to have someone tumbling down with a tripod flying all over the place. I think he's contemplating Bit of a wuse actually I think he's scared hello everybody hope you're all doing really well Ammonite Falls running pretty good right now now ammonite Falls is actually not very far from the city of Nanaimo which is on Vancouver Island and like the last fall's I photographed in the summer it's pretty much dried up but we've had a bit of rain and as you can see it's it's coming down pretty good now I have been here a number of times but I've always had trouble finding a good composition you know the falls looks really good but it's it's finding a meaningful foreground there are a few rocks and such into foreground but I might be able to use and the ferns are still looking pretty good so I might be able to utilize those as well but the falls is definitely looking really nice just a matter of finding a foreground that will draw the viewer into the frame or into the photograph and that's the hard part I try to find something that relates to the background or or kind of brings you on a little kind of journey through the frame so to speak so that's the job I'm gonna have to do right now we try and find out a half-decent foreground okay I think I found a composition that I really like I have these ferns in the foreground these beautiful sword ferns and there's actually a little bit of full color I mean it's pretty small but it adds a little bit of color some yellow leaves there and then I have some ferns at the bottom of the frame as well so it kind of really fills the frame and in the background I have Ammonite Falls which is just gorgeous right now. Okay so this is the composition that I have and I really quite like it I've tried to fill the frame without all these sword ferns up here and I like these ones that kind of jut in through the bottom there so that fills that that right side really quite nicely and I probably darken this area here now I really like a little bit of full colour that I have in the foreground as well just adds a little bit more depth and a little bit more interest and then of course we have the the waterfall in the background so you'll notice that even though the waterfall is the main subject it kind of takes the secondary role in this image it's not just a picture of a big waterfall it's the environment around it so I think this will work quite well the only thing that I don't like and I'll just zoom in here is that right there that's the ass of Gavin Hardcastle he's always getting in my shots that's why I don't like photographing with other people it's just so annoying okay now in last week's video many of you seem to enjoy the self critique so I think I I'm gonna do that again in this video and kind of go over my successes and not so successful images now in this particular day I only took two images so there's not a lot to go over I'll start off with the first image here the composition I really like and as I said in my explanation the waterfall really takes a secondary role in the in the whole composition even though it's somewhat the main subject I made it quite small in the frame because I really wanted to show the environment and the surroundings around the waterfall so as far as processing goes what it did for this photograph is I did darken the edges considerably just to draw your attention to the center of the photograph and then I lightened up the the ferns at the bottom here because I really liked those because they kind of point into the center of the frame and draw your eye into the center here the the ferns on the on the right side here I also lightened quite a bit because I find them just fascinating and there they have some beautiful texture and color in there so I find them quite interesting the touch of color yellow down here I brightened up a little bit too just to add a bit of depth and some interest in in the bottom left hand side of the of the frame here you'll also notice that the brightest area in the whole image is the waterfall and that's where I want the viewers eye to go in an ideal world I would have preferred a little bit more directional light but you know I I say that in in all of my videos and I'm always harping on about the light but it's true any kind of directional light will certainly give your image a little bit of depth and umph but you know we have to kind of make do with with what we have and I think I did an okay job in this respect now I have to be honest with you this isn't my first time that I've approached this waterfall with this composition and I'll show you an image that I took back in 2012 now the first thing you'll notice about this photograph is that it's very green really saturated and that's because I took it in June so the foliage is all nice and fresh and this particular year there was quite a bit of rain in the spring so the waterfall was looking really good as well the one thing you will notice that's quite different is that the waterfall was quite a bit bigger in this frame even though the ferns are more or less the same size as the last image so the photograph that I took recently was with a Nikon 16 to 35 millimeter and I had it racked out at 19 millimeters so very wide and that's why the waterfall is quite small in the frame now this image here I took with a Canon 17 - 40 but I had it racked out to 38 millimeters so the narrower angle of view and the longer focal length has really brought that background forward and that's why the waterfall looks so much larger in the frame there's no wrong or right way to approach a composition and there's no perfect focal length through each composition as far as focal lengths go I guess it really boils down to how much dominance you want that background in your final image and how much emphases you want on it so by using a longer focal length i've brought more emphases to the waterfall whereas by using a wider lens in the more recent image it's put far less emphasis on the waterfall and more on the ferns in the foreground so two different approaches like I said no wrong or right way just two different ways to approach the same subject Oh it wasn't balls deep after all was it? okay that's dedication for you that's what you have to do if you want to be a real photographer Of course it's the deepest part of the whole stream not sure if I got a very good composition well first of all I had quite a bit of moisture on my lens and of course I didn't bring a lens cloth with me but I know I looked white you can look quite neat at least have a bit of white water in the foreground so kind of just to add a little bit of interest nobody said getting shots was easy or good shots and they're not always that good either. Okay now this is the other image that I took no this is the raw file I haven't done anything to this and it was a it was a location that both Gavin and I took turns in photographing we had to wade right into the creek there and of course it was the deepest part of the creek so I ended up taking my pants off to get in there. It will be interested to see what Gavin comes up with and I'm sure I hope he'll put his version in the video or hopefully he'll put it in so we can see what it looks like but as far as my version goes I I don't think it works first of all the right-hand side here it just doesn't look balanced to me there's a lot of mess up in the the left-hand corner here especially with the brown leaves and it's quite a bit more water flow on the right as compared to the the left here and it just looks off balance to me you may have noticed that in the first photograph I took the waterfall was somewhat blocked by branches and such and it's it's the same here but it doesn't work I almost feel like I wish I'd moved over further to the to the right and I know that Gavin did so it will be interesting to see what what he came up with okay the other thing that you may notice and if i zoom in my focus was off by quite a bit actually so another fail there but it happens sometimes if I don't pay attention to what I'm doing and in this case I obviously didn't care enough about the photograph to really put a lot of effort into it it it just doesn't it just not gonna work is it worth going back to try again I I think so I think if I did move to the right I might better get something a little bit more decent and pay more attention to what I'm doing with the focus you'll also notice and I've done this a number of times especially worldwide angles down here when it's not a huge deal but keep an eye on those corners and the outside of the frame for tripod legs happens quite often sometimes it's a little bit tricky this particular image was very tricky to get in because this this rock here is a slab is very slippery so it's really hard to set the tripod up so it wouldn't keep sliding back towards me so I had to find little notches in the rock to try and stabilize it so I ended up including a leg of the tripod so just keep an eye out for things like that in your own photographs okay now since we're talking about things creeping into the frame I just thought I'd bring up this photograph again maybe some of you noticed maybe some of you didn't notice thanks to David Fletcher in the comments for pointing this out but if you look over to the right here of this image from last week's video you'll notice that what seems to be a rock is it's actually my backpack so big fail there I ended up cloning it out because I didn't have any other images with the pack not in the frame so thanks David for pointing that out I really appreciate it right so I had a little bit of drama a little bit of tomfoolery action even had a little bit of photography in that video before I leave you guys I just wanted to cover a couple of things okay, Gavin Gavin Hardcastle for those of you that don't know him he has a YouTube channel he's had it for quite a while actually but he's just started to put a bit more effort into it so good for you Gavin if you haven't seen his his videos they're really funny and he's very knowledgeable as well so I'll leave a link at the end of the video if you're interested in watching Gavin's videos I highly recommend them and also they're local so they have a lot of interest for me as well my website I have a new website my old one actually it's not even that old I was having quite a few problems with it so I've gone over to a different platform now my old website is a quiet light photo adventures I haven't transferred the domain name over yet so right now it's under adamgibbsphoto.com so if you'd like to go and visit it it's still a work in progress but the meat and potatoes are all all in there and if I can try and keep up with it I'm gonna start putting all of the images that I take from each of my videos so you get it you know so you can have a closer look at them and lastly workshops I'm still offering workshops for 2019 I have six they are filling up fast actually the Tonquin Valley workshop i only have two spots left now if i do fill it i might offer another one i'm not sure yet but there's still a few spots left for Vancouver Island I have three workshops in Port Renfrew this year or next year 2019 Hornby Island which is in February I have a couple of spots left there and The Talus or the talon, Talus Lodge I have a number of spots available there and actually if you sign up before the end of the month and I can give you a 10% discount because I need to get it signed up so that I can give the lodge deposits as quickly as possible before they fill up with other guests so if you are interested or thinking about it then that would be great if you can join me for 2019 alright everybody thank you ever so much for watching I hope you enjoyed it if you would like to see more content where I go over kind of the images that I took for the day and kind of what I see see as mistakes or fails be sure to leave a comment below and as always if you give me a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video and if you like the content on my channel don't forget to subscribe thanks ever so much everybody and I'll catch you next time okay bye

Channel: Adam Gibbs

Views: 36,268

Keywords: adam gibbs, adam gibbs photography, gavin hardcastle, nanaimo, vancouver island, british columbia, canada, photographing waterfalls, landscape photography, landscape photography tips, composition in photography, how to compose an image, nature photography, wilderness photography, photographing the landscape, using a wide angle lens, using a wide angle lens for landscapes, wide angle lens versus telephoto lens, how to use a telephoto lens correctly, photographing vancouver island

Id: JD4uAhnN9Ms

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 24 2018