I love the scene at Knife Shop Falls, but I'm not wild about the way the falls seem to flow out of the frame from this vantage point. I tried to make that work by creating a counterpoint of the leaves swirling in the eddy just below the small second drop. A 15-second exposure provided the motion effect I wanted, but I had to throw in a few extra leaves to add more weight and substance. That exposure proved too much for the main falls, so I shot them at a faster shutter speed and blended it in; the lower drop, at center left, I shot at a longer shutter speed as it needed more exposure and more oomph in the flow. I wanted to add a little more action to the image, so, after resetting my ISO, shutter speed and aperture, I threw some leaves into the air, and fired off a few frames as they fluttered down. I did that maybe a half dozen times. I wound up selecting three of those frames and blended in a few leaves from each to create the final composition. To make the shot more cohesive, I used a color range mask in Camera Raw to make all the leaves roughly the same color. Finally, some Orton effect and some added glow created the dreamy quality I sought for the image.
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