While I love going out fishing and equally going out shooting other people fishing, I have to admit that there is some down time. The main subject when out fishing is of course the fish, when none are being pulled you have to wait. If you love being outdoors then it really isn’t a problem there is always something to do. For me I just watched. The Bald Eagles are starting to migrate through again so that provided a lot of entertainment. Of course we had a grey sky and I didn’t have long glass with me so it was truly a watching game with them. Then of there are the ducks, geese and kingfishers that go by which are always fun. But the most fun thing to do while waiting is playing around with the camera.
The great thing about working with a big river is there are great rapids. This makes its a little more challenging to cross but that’s what waiters are for. The rapids can be a lot of fun and great entertainment. The light reflecting off of the top is a big part of the composition and when finishing in post, using ACR you really bring out those difference between the areas where light is reflecting and the shadows on the water. If you go real wide keep in mind that the sky can be either a blessing or a killer depending on the time of day and the amount of cloud cover.
Then again you can always come across those little spots where you can go real tight and find a nice pattern amongst the rapids. Shooting with the D4 and 24-70 AF-S f/2.8, I was hand holding at 1/30th of a second to get the motion blur. It’s pretty hard to walk the river with a tripod so good hand holding technique is important. When working with tight rapids and motion blur, unless you are going for a very artistic look where everything is blurry, then it is important to keep some sort of anchor in the composition for the eye to relax on. In this case it was that red rock in the lower left corner that I was focusing on. It’s small, out of the way, and not distracting. Simple.