Secluded Pool

Posted on August 30, 2011 | 18 comments

Sunday morning I packed up my gear and headed out to shoot another set of local waterfalls. These two falls were the last on a list that I compiled several weeks ago but had not had an opportunity to shoot yet. Both falls are along the same stretch of river and are within a quarter mile of each other but they are in a section of our area where I had never been. In my research, I had found two different sets of instructions on how to approach the falls and had chosen what sounded like the quickest route. To make a long story short, it wasn’t.

By the time I decided to turn back and try the other approach, it was already 11 o’clock in the morning and the sun was beating down through the forest canopy. I figured that at least I could use this as a scouting trip for another day and continued with the second approach. This time the directions were bang-on, both falls were within a half mile of a gravel parking lot and along a prepared trail.

The first set of falls were a complete wash because of the harsh mid-day sun but the second falls were a little more secluded from the sunlight and offered some pretty good photo opportunities. I spent a lot of time here waiting for the occasional cloud to pass in front of the sun and help diffuse the light. I shot several frames catching the light playing off of the scene in different ways. Of the images I brought back, I think I like this one the best.

Camera settings: Canon 60D, Canon EF-S 18-135mm Lens, 24mm, ISO100, f/16, 3.2 seconds, CPL, ND4

Processing: Adobe Lightroom 3, Adobe Photoshop CS5, Topaz Adjust, OnOne PhotoTools 2.6