Henry Heerschap
November 2025 - Starvation Creek
Original
About the Image(s)
My wife and I had the opportunity to attend the PSA conference in Portland in September. Instead of going to the official outings, we decided instead to revisit several places we've been meaning to get back to. One of those was Starvation Creek State Park which is on the eastern edge of the Columbia Gorge waterfall area and is relatively unknown to tourists. The area features four significant waterfalls, but this image is of the creek that flows just beneath Starvation Creek Falls. I was still dialing in my settings and rather significantly underexposed the image. I still liked it. I was able to recover the shadows and was able to address the noise issue with DxO PureRaw. I cropped it and did the BW conversion in Lightroom Classic, then processed it further in Photoshop using On1 Effects as a plugin.
Sony A7R V, Sony 100-400 lens. ISO 200, 262mm, f/13, 1 second. Used a tripod.
2 comments posted
I'm a big fan of shooting waterfalls, so your image immediately appeals to me. For a severely under exposed image you brought back the darks quite well. The one-second shutter speed rendered the water nicely without losing the highlight, and it's nicely composed. My only suggestion would be to remove the twig that is in the center of the image. Posted: 11/05/2025 15:33:44
The picture is well composed with the falls biased to the upper left at about the 1/3 power point area, and with the large boulders to the right. The two small falls at the upper right add points of interest.
Using your 100-400 zoom at 262mm creates a fairly shallow depth of field, The rocks at the bottom of the frame are somewhat soft in focus due to this limitation. Posted: 11/05/2025 20:57:29