hjchung

ohko no taki waterfall

Yakushima

Yakushima
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Jun, 2016

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was from a series of landscape images I took during our trip to Yakushima Island (around 2hr ferry ride from Kagoshima, Kyushu). It is well known as the inspiration behind Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke as well. We have planned this itinerary in advance once we decided to have a 2-week long Kyushu tour in mid October. We spent a total of 4 days 3 nights over there, just do some light hiking and shooting around the island.

Time

This is the first spot we visited after checking in and having lunch on the island. To be honest the sunlight was still a bit harsh at around 3 to 4pm. So we spent around 1 hr there and I tried to walked along the stream to get a better view. I have a very strong memory on this area as I almost slipped on those rocks while walking on the tricky surface to reach the edge of the stream.

Lighting

In this particular shot, my instinct told me to play around with the light and shadow between the waterfall and stream. In addition, I want the light to be more gentle in the composition while other parts just blend in quietly to try to bring out the serenity and beauty of the scene.

Equipment

I am a big fan of long exposure so a big stopper was a must. I think long exposure can really create sense of time quietly flowing through the woods. I took the shot with a Nikon D800 and Zeiss Distagon 21mm f2.8 zf.2 on a tripod.

Inspiration

I always want to create landscape work (to my own taste) that reflect the theme of "time" regardless of the subjects in the frame (wandering clouds, moving waves etc). I think it worked very well in those shots I took in Yakushima as the ancient forest just seems unchanged through the flow of time. In this shot, you can see the change of sunlight and the running stream of water yet the rock and forest seems to be there forever. Yakushima was such a genuinely mesmerising place that I hope to capture the beauty of it to show other travelers who are looking for less travel place in Japan.

Editing

Yeah I did. But not over the top to my taste. I always love and tried to show something as it is, so frankly I do not really interested in composed or multiple exposed images. For this image, I use Lightroom 5.7 and Color Efex Pro to tweak mainly the highlight and shadow. It took me quite a while to get the output that I felt acceptable as the harsh light was still too much even with the big stopper.

In my camera bag

Mainly just the D800, with few prime lens including the 21mm, nikkor 28mm and 85mm for street, and also the zeiss apo 135mm. I used to carry the nikkor 24-70mm 2.8 around in the bag together with them....but the weight is killing me these days. May be I am too old for this lol.

Feedback

I think anyone can do it. Seriously, it is not about the tool. I mean to a certain extent it is, for example the sensor noise during long exposure, the print quality etc. but you can literally do a long exposure with any camera as long as it allows you to do so. As for the scene, as long as you are at some place that bring inspiration, you just take time to compose the image. Walk around different area and look at the subject at different angle to decide which is the best one. That's just my two cents. Be honest and critical to yourself to take the best you can at that particular available opportunity then it will work just fine.

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hjchung

hjchung

ohko no taki waterfall

Yakushima

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow hjchung

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