3-27 My First Waterfall Hunt - Six Finger Falls

After I left Fallingwater Falls, I went downstream a few miles to another nice waterfall right next to the road.

It was getting late in the day, and a storm was coming from the west, so my light was getting better.  I was still learning my camera and playing with my aperture and shutter speeds.  (1 sec, f-16, ISO100)

I wanted to get a better feel for the movement of the water so I closed my aperture as far as it would go and got a longer shutter speed.  The water looks beautifully green.  (5 sec, f-25, ISO100)

 I wanted to get eye level with the top of the falls.  I sometimes wasn't paying attention to all of the parameters and my camera wasn't level for this one.  I shot this one with a quick shutter speed. (1/4 sec, f-11, ISO100)

I widened my zoom, which gave me more light through my lens, even though I had a tight aperture.  (2 sec, f-25, ISO100)

Another eye level shot.  I like the way the water and the rock create angles here. (1/4 sec, f-11, ISO100)

I wanted to get a sense of how far the foam was running out of the finger.  By this time it was sprinkling rain, so I ended up having to photoshop some spots out of my picture.(1.6 sec, f-25, ISO100)

I have been reading a lot about landscape photography and one of the tips I gleaned was to shoot from low angles and include foreground interest.  I did both on this one, but I think it may be too "busy".  I do like how the water comes around the corner and back in front of the rock. (1.3 sec, f-11, ISO100)

As you can see, at the end of March in the Ozark Mountains, there isn't much in the way of leaves on the trees.  I think that makes everything seem a little lifeless.  I may come back and redo some of these in black and white.

My last waterfall of the day was going to be Fuzzybutt Falls, but the stream was running too high, it was getting ready to start raining, and my butt hurt pretty bad from my fall at Kings Bluff Falls earlier in the day.  It was about 5:30 in the evening and I was getting tired.  I hadn't done that much physical activity in a while and I knew I would be sore in the morning.  That didn't matter, though, because I was hooked on hunting waterfalls!

3-27 My First Waterfall Hunt - Fallingwater Falls

After I left Kings Bluff Falls, I was really hungry so I headed west towards Pelsor.  There is a little gas station at the junction of Highway 7 and 16.  Unfortunately it is closed on Saturdays.  So I had a choice: 30 miles to Jasper or 30 miles to Dover.  I decided on Dover because I thought it would give me more options for places to go after wards.  After lunch at the Buccaneer, I entered the GPS coordinates for Fallingwater Falls and headed that way.  The GPS unit told me to go back to Hector on Hwy 27 and back up Old Hwy 7.  My next turn was on Lower Fallingwater Road.  I found out later that my GPS route added about 10 miles of dirt road I didn't need to travel on.  There is a shortcut to the blacktop that I found on my way back out.

When I got to Fallingwater Falls, this is what I saw:

Interesting view. There was a nice rock to set up on, so I was pointing in different directions to see what I would get.(1.6 sec, f-22, ISO100)

See the ladder on the tree in the middle?  This is supposed to be a good swimming hole.  I will post pictures when I find out!  ;) (0.6 sec, f-22, ISO100)

Notice the difference in the two pictures?  (Other than the framing)  That is because of the difference in the way I used post processing in Photoshop.  I shoot everything in RAW format because a RAW file holds all of the information that the camera sensor captures.  A JPG file only retains part of the information because it is a compressed file format.  With the first picture, I didn't do much in the way of adjustments.  I got a tip from a friend who told me to raise the contrast, vibrance and saturation.  I went back later on and changed the settings for the second one.  I think it makes for a better picture, and certainly more realistic.

The water was running pretty good on this day. I wanted to get a wide shot of the falls for perspective.  Fortunately the sky was cloudy enough that I didn't blow out my highlights too much.  (1/6 sec, f-11, ISO100)

Notice the man in the rock?  My artistic friend Dee pointed that out to me.  She said it reminded her of the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire, which collapsed in 2003. I guess all of those New Hampshirites will have to come to Arkansas to see it.  (1/4 sec, f-16, ISO100)

I have been playing with Photoshop a lot, and learning what works and what doesn't.  I use a lot of dodging and burning, especially when I shoot in broad daylight.  Some people say that isn't "pure" photography, but my answer to that is "What would Ansel Adams do?"  Honestly, the only reason I do that is to make the image as true to life as possible.

The next waterfall I visited that day was Six-Finger Falls, a few miles downstream from here.

3-27 My First Waterfall Hunt - Kings Bluff Falls

My kids were on spring break, so my wife wanted to take them to see their grandparents in Fort Smith over the weekend.  I decided that it would be a great opportunity to go on my first waterfall hunt.  I packed my camera gear, borrowed a friends GPS unit, got out my Arkansas Waterfall Guidebook and took off.

It was a bright sunny day, fairly cool, and I was excited.  I left the house about 10 AM and headed to Atkins, got off the interstate and went up Hwy 105 to Old Arkansas 7, which was about 20 miles of dirt road.  I got to the trailhead for Kings Bluff Falls around noon.  (That's one of the hard parts about hunting waterfalls from Little Rock:  it's a two hour drive to just about anywhere in Arkansas with waterfalls!)  It was an easy 20 minute walk to the top of the falls.    Kings Bluff Falls is the fourth highest waterfall in Arkansas at 114 feet tall.

This being my first waterfall to photograph, I just set my tripod up and started shooting.  Since it was just after high noon, my pictures were very contrasty. (1/3 sec, f-29, ISO100)

Next, I went around the western side of the falls to see this little cascade.(1/2 sec, f-29, ISO100)

It looked like a big waterslide. (0.6 sec, f-22, ISO100)

This is the view from the other side of the creek, looking east. (0.8 sec, f-22, ISO100)

I then went down to the bottom of the falls. (1/2 sec, f-22, ISO100)

As I was working my way around the bottom of the falls with my camera in one hand and my tripod in the other, I slipped and fell HARD on my butt.  I certainly didn't want to hurt my camera on my first hunt!  It made for a painful hike back up to the top of the bluffs, and back to my truck. (1/6 sec, f-22, ISO100)

There is another waterfall on the east side of the bluff, near the path down to the bottom, but I didn't get any good shots of it.

This waterfall is in the Pedestal Rocks Scenic area, and on the way around the other half of the loop trail, you can see why.  The trail from here on out is pretty easy, fortunately for me and my hurting heiney! (1/60 sec, f-5.6, ISO100)

This was the best picture I captured of this waterfall. I dodged the bluff on the right in order to get more detail from the shadows.  I even caught a nice little rainbow!  (1/3 sec, f-29, ISO100)

I wasn't done for the day, either.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog.

Recently I have become obsessed with photographing waterfalls in the state of Arkansas.  My parents and some friends had gotten a copy of Tim Ernst's Arkansas Waterfalls Guidebook.  After I looked at their pictures from a few trips, I went and got me a copy.  Since then I have been going on my own and with my family to see some of the beautiful places in Arkansas.

I want to show you the pictures and tell you the stories behind them.  I am a relatively new photographer, so I am learning how to shoot, how to use my camera and how to process pictures in Photoshop.

I will warn you, I am new to blogging, and certainly not a professional writer, or a very good one at that, so it will take me some time to learn how to do this. 

This is Kings Bluff Falls, which was the first waterfall I visited.  In my next post I will tell the story behind it.