Congratulations to Tom Elenbaas for winning the Green Scene Photography Assignment with the image, “Prairie Creek.” See more of Elenbaas’s photography at www.tomelenbaas.com.
View the winning image and a selection of submissions in the gallery below. And be sure to check out our current photography assignment here and enter your best shots!
Winner: “Prairie Creek” By Tom Elenbaas
“Although I’m a California native, I hadn’t been to the Redwoods since long before I began my sojourn into nature photography,” says Elenbaas. “I finally made that happen in May of 2019. This particular image was captured in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. At first, I was somewhat disappointed with Prairie Creek. The redwoods were not as impressive as in some of the other parks and the rhododendrons were sparce. But eventually we came upon this waterfall. I use the term ‘waterfall’ loosely since the cascade was barely 2 feet tall. But its setting made it impressive despite its diminutive stature. Shot at mid-day under cloudy conditions, I captured this at a 24mm focal length at ISO 400 for 1.6 seconds. I stopped down to f/16 to assure that the foreground and distant trees remained in focus. In post I used luminosity masking to minimize the highlights in the sky and distant trees and bring out the details of the waterfall and its surroundings. Spotlighting and vignetting were used to further focus the viewer’s attention on the cascade.”