Montreal Botanical Gardens

   Montreal is Canada's version of Paris; a beautiful city with an Old World charm.  Like Paris, Montrealers take great pride in their parks, particularly the botanical gardens on the site of the 1976 Summer Olympics.  There you will find Japanese Gardens, Chinese Gardens, Alpine Gardens, desert environments, Greenhouses...the list goes on.

   Photographically, water is like a magnet to me.  Unlike most other elements water gives movement to light.  You can shoot it fast and stop all the action, or you can shoot it slow and let the water carry its' light through the photo.  I love the slower shutter speeds and try to use them with water whenever I can.
  This shot was particularly enjoyable because the waterfall was in the shade and the foreground was in the sun.  This gave me the opportunity to get motion in the falls without blowing out the highlights in the water.  The wind cooperated as well.  It took a little patience but after a few minutes the slight breeze slowed enough to get this image.
   What I think works particularly well in here is how the foreground is back lit by the sun, allowing it to pop and form a border around the waterfall.  This helps create dimensionality and draw your eye into the photo.  Thanks to back lighting, the pine branch that drops down from the center into the upper left stands out from the background.  Without it, the branch would have just blended into the background as a green blob.  The mix of sun and shade also added color contrast, with the waterfall going just a bit cooler than the foreground elements.
   The contrasts of color, light, and movement all add to the success of a photograph and should be considered every time you point your camera at a subject.