I just came back from a PAW workshop to Glacier National Park with Moe Witschard. I was an observer, helping Moe and giving him some feed back on his teaching and workshop skills. I now have become the old codger leader, sharing my wisdom while gumming my food. But because I wasn’t teaching I was able to photograph (PAW leaders don’t photograph on workshops) and got to enjoy the park through my viewfinder for once.

Moe took us to a falls on McDonald Creek and I was playing with a little riffle in the big falls as a foreground element. I took a vertical and horizontal shot using the riffle to lead the viewer into the composition. I particularly like the vertical composition- using my 12-24 Nikon lens to get just a foot away from the closest part of the composition.(By the way, I focused 2 feet from my camera. The rule for focusing in a hyperfocal landscape is- focus 2x to 3x the closest part of your composition. I was 1 foot away so I focused 2 feet away) 

Back in my room, I converted the horizontal to black and white in the grayscale part of Lightroom. I think I like it better in black and white. This is unusual for me…I generally don’t like black and white conversions of color scenes because I see the world in color and like the world in color. I think I like this shot of the waterfall because the scene is pretty close to black and white already so it is not much of a conversion for me to see it in black and white. I’ll let you decide.