Taughannock Falls

Taughannock Falls with fall colors all around

Although central New York isn’t listed in many photography guides as a destination, I did manage to find several very accomplished photographers who had posted content from the area. It quickly became apparent that waterfalls and water features would be a large component of my shot list for the trip. One location that was mentioned over and over was Taughannock Falls. The websites and guides noted its height and its beauty. It also turned out to be extraordinarily easy to photograph.

The falls were near the hotel where I based for the trip. So, I made a relatively short drive before dawn one day and captured this scene. I had hoped to include a dramatic sky at sunrise but this day dawned cloudy and drizzly. Fortunately, the colors around the falls were turning so I was able to include some fall foliage. I briefly thought about making the hike to the bridge and the viewing are seen in the foreground of this image. But I quickly realized that my foreground would have a lot of junk in it down there and the foreground for this image was already quite good. So, after fifteen minutes or so of composing the shot as many ways as I could I imagine, I loaded up my gear and headed for the next location. More from upstate New York next time. Enjoy.

The Flow

Glen Creek falls over a series of cascades in beautiful Watkins Glen State Park

This is another view of the cascade that I discussed in the last post. Once again, the high overcast created some beautiful conditions to shoot. This is a pretty long exposure (4 seconds) which gives the water a silky feel and shows some of the movement of leaves and other debris in the stream. By shooting at ISO 100 I was able to choose from a range of apertures to yield the look and feel I was after. This shot is at f/11 which gives sufficient depth of field to allow a sharp image all the way through the frame. It’s a simple image but the fallen leaves blanketing the layered rock makes a nice background for Glen Creek as it meanders through the scene. Enjoy.

 

Not the Kind of Fall I Expected!

Foliage nearing peak color at the top of Upper Creek Falls

The view from the very top of Upper Creek Falls near the peak of the fall foliage season

During my trip to the western North Carolina mountains, I was looking for some locations where I hadn’t shot before. As it turned out there were a ton of waterfalls nearby that I had thought about visiting before but had never actually visited. So, I took one day and went to three that looked promising.

Upper Creek Falls is south of the Blue Ridge Parkway and near Linville Falls. The trail isn’t nearly as developed as others in the area, though. Consequently, there is relatively little traffic to the falls. Upper Creek Falls is interesting because you can get to the top and bottom of the falls via a loop trail. Most waterfall trails take you to the bottom or the top of the falls, but the route between top and bottom is usually off-limits. There is a good reason for that. The constant moisture from the spray of a waterfall tends to make everything in the vicinity moist and slippery. Rocks are especially notorious for building up a thin layer of slime that becomes as slick as ice when wet. I have plenty of first-hand experience with slipping in creeks and rivers. In fact, there is more about that in a moment.

I decided to approach the falls by heading to the upper end via the loop trail. The trail was relatively short and on an easily managed grade. Even though the parking lot could accommodate ten or twenty cars, there was only one other in the lot when I arrived. I followed the only other couple down the trail as we both headed toward the overlook at the top of the falls.

The creek feeding the falls is pretty in and of itself. The foliage surrounding the stream was beginning its turn to the vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges of fall. The scene above the falls was beautiful enough to photograph. So, I set down my pack and set up my tripod to capture the scene. I was set up on a rock ledge closest to the stream. When at full flow the rock that I was standing on would have been underwater. Fortunately, in the fall the area is pretty dry so most of the rock was safe to walk on. But, remember what I said about rock becoming as slick as ice when wet? What I didn’t realize was that a small amount of water had been trickling out of the woods and had flowed across the rock to the creek. As it turned out, that three-inch swath was exceptionally slippery. I know because I stepped on it as I was looking through my viewfinder composing an image. As quick as you can imagine my left foot flew out from beneath me and I fell on my butt and my left hand that I had thrown out to break my fall. I kept my right hand on a tripod leg to attempt from having my camera going flying into the stream and over the waterfall!

The good news was that I kept my very expensive camera body and lens from being dunked in the water and smashed on the rocks. The bad news was that my left wrist was causing me quite a bit of pain. Get the picture. I had fallen mostly on my left side, braced my fall on the smooth rock with my left hand, and was reaching up to steady my tripod, camera, and lens with my right hand. I managed to settle my tripod back onto all three of its legs so that I could work my way back onto my feet. Pushing off with my left hand was unthinkable because of the pain. I rolled and cautiously made it back onto my feet. I began to rotate and move my wrist to see if it was broken. Amazingly, I had full motion with it even though moving it was very painful. At this point, I called off my plans to hike to the bottom of the falls. The last thing I needed was to discover that I was a mile or more away from my car with a broken wrist. I moved slowly back to my car checking my wrist continuously.

As it turned out my wrist wasn’t broken. But, I certainly had sprained it. Over the next few days, it grew swollen, turned black and blue, and remained painful. But, it became obvious that it wasn’t broken. As it turned out, the fall that I experienced wasn’t the one I expected!

Minor Cascade on Dick’s Creek

As I was photographing Dick’s Creek Falls, my eye was drawn to the stream below the falls. The late afternoon sunlight was filtering through a high overcast sky and creating some incredible reflections and colors in the stream. I wanted to capture the beauty of the stream and convey some sense of the motion of the water.

I shot a couple dozen images varying exposure length, depth of field, and the use of a polarizer. I don’t think I captured the shimmering quality of light so well, but I am happy with the length of exposure. Some of the images I took were so long an exposure that I lost all of the detail of the water in the left side of the frame. Here I’ve managed to keep that detail and still capture the water cascading over the small drop in the creek.

I don’t know why, but I like this image a lot. I suppose after focusing on landscapes and trying to capture the vastness of nature, it’s fun to shoot intimate details every once in a while. I hope you enjoy the image as much as I do.

Dick’s Creek Falls

A beautiful waterfall found in the north Georgia mountains near Suches

On my one day jaunt in the north Georgia mountains, I was able to hike or drive to four or five different waterfalls. Strangely enough, my favorite waterfalls of the day were the ones that were the most easily accessible. Usually the reverse is true. To see the truly beautiful sights, I have to work a bit to get there.

This waterfall is in the Chattahoochee National Forest north of Dahlonega and just south of Suches. It is at the confluence of Dick’s Creek and Waters Creek. The Forest Service has created a nice parking area just across the road from the falls. It’s apparent that this is a popular summertime location to cool off and enjoy the view.

I have been to these falls before but didn’t come away with results that really pleased me. I took quite a bit of time shooting as many compositions of the falls as I could. I moved around very carefully because the area I was shooting from can be very slippery after a rain or when wet leaves are covering the large, flat rocks I was standing on. In fact, the last time I was here I slipped and hit the rocks quite hard. I had the bruises to prove it for a few weeks thereafter.

On that trip it had been difficult to move around the banks of the stream. Moving out to the rocks in the middle of the stream would had been ill-advised. On this trip, the rocks were much drier and actually offered a bit of traction. I carefully made my way out to a group of large rocks close to the middle of the stream. I was able to set up my tripod and crouch into a decent shooting position. The shot I had in mind is the one featured in this blog post. I wanted to put the smaller downstream cascade in the image as my foreground with the main falls as the primary focus further in the background. The late afternoon sunlight lit up the surrounding area enough to generate a bit of a reflection in the creek itself.

There was a tremendous amount of contrast in this scene. The rocks on the banks were very dark while the rushing white water was almost at the other end of the contrast scale. I took five images and blended them with Photomatix Pro’s Exposure Blending mode. There was simply no other way to preserve the shadow and highlight details of the image. The resulting blended image is very close to the conditions present that afternoon. Even though all of the trees are bare, the rhododendron that surrounds many southern streams added the color necessary to set the falls off. The copper color in the stream is generated by the sediment and rocks that lie at its bottom. It’s amazing to think that the Appalachians were once the height of today’s tallest mountains. They are beautiful, but I would have liked to have seen them before erosion took its toll.

Waterfall in the Chattahoochee National Forest

An unnamed waterfall just off a forest service road in the Chattahoochee National Forest

I’ve already posted a couple images from a day trip I took to the north Georgia mountains. I also mentioned that part of my wandering took me deep into the Chattahoochee National Forest. This image was taken on that trip and in the national forest.

There really isn’t a lot to say about this image. It is interesting that I don’t know of a name for this particular waterfall. I suppose it is named somewhere, but because it isn’t easily viewed it isn’t a popular spot to which to hike and hang out. As a matter of fact, I almost didn’t photograph the fall. I was driving along the forest service road and I happened to see it out of the corner of my eye. I quickly backed up and found a wide spot in the road to pull out. As it turned out, I didn’t need to have bothered. No one came by for the entire time I was photographing the fall. For that matter, I didn’t see anyone in the hours I spent driving and hiking that day.

When I got out of my car, I walked up and down the road to find the best way down to the waterfall. Unfortunately, the best way was a near vertical drop near where I had parked with only a few rhododendrons and small tree trunks to act as handholds. It had rained a bit in the past few days so the “trail” I found was slippery to boot. I seriously considered not going down at all. Once I committed though, I had no other choice. There was no way I could back out of the descent once I got started.

I made my way down to the best vantage point I could find and set up my tripod. Unfortunately, there was no way to improve my angle. Every other step from where I set up would have resulted in a quick drop or slide to the bottom of the falls. So, I don’t love some of the distractions at the edges of this composition, but it was the best I could do without breaking my neck.

For this image, I shot my typical five frame set with one stop of exposure separating each. I merged the files with Photomatix Pro, but this time I used the Details Enhancer rather than the Exposure Blending mode. I like the result. The green of the overhanging rhododendron contrasts nicely with the white of the flowing water and the reddish-brown of the clay bank. The water flowing from the top left to the bottom right leads my eye nicely through the image.

Once I was done, I carefully pulled my way out of the gorge. For some reason, it’s always easier to climb out than it is to climb in. I made it out with no problem and set out for my next destination: another waterfall.

Hadlock Brook and Waterfall Bridge

Hadlock Brook flows under a carriage road and Waterfall Bridge surrounded by beautiful fall foliage

In my last post I described the carriage roads and bridges found in Acadia National Park. The photo in the last post was of the only naturally occurring waterfall found in the park. Now, I always love to photograph waterfalls, but in this case the bridges were often as beautiful as the streams they crossed.

That certainly is the case here. We were standing atop Waterfall Bridge to take a photo of the falls and surrounding foliage. Considering the beauty of the granite bridge, I had to figure out a way to include the bridge in an image along with the waterfall. Fortunately, most of the bridges have some form of path allowing a relatively easy descent down to the streams or gorges they cross. I worked my way down that path looking for an unobstructed view of the bridge that also allowed a view of the waterfall through the bridge’s arch.

I couldn’t find a perfect angle that matched the image I had in my mind’s eye. There were trees and shrubs growing up along the relatively steep banks of Hadlock Brook. At one point I moved up virtually into the arch and used my 14-24 wide angle lens. I could see the waterfall and surrounding foliage but the arch was distorted from its actual graceful curve. Although there are some foreground elements that I wish were not in this image, I like this perspective. You can see the texture of the stone work. the design elements of the bridge, the arch, and the some of the waterfall on the other side of the bridge. It was quite a windy day and you can see some blur in some of the foliage, but I don’t think that distracts from the image.