Category: waterfalls

The next nearest community west of where I live is Dryden with a population of almost 8000. Since my town has about 1200, Dryden offers some stuff Ignace doesn’t. A camera club is one of the activities that draws me there.

Recently I was able to attend a Dryden Camera Club meeting which included a field trip to a local park that has a suspension bridge over the river running through town. A club member referred to it as the ‘bridge to no where’ because you cross over to a platform on the other shore then have to return.

The bridge was of little interest to me to photograph but I did cross it (twice). The moving water was of much more appealing to shoot. There were a few significant challenges, however. The setting sun created harsh contrast even the neutral density filters hardly reduced. Man-made structures up stream and down stream were numerous so we worked at tightening the shot.

I was pleased with the composition in the above shot (85mm, 1.0 sec, f/20, ISO 100). I really liked how the white in the foreground rock mimicked the layers of white water on the background ridges but disappointed to discover upon upload that the foreground was not in focus. Even though I shot at f/20, I had focused in the middle of the scene instead of the lower third (explained a club member). It would have been easy to take a second image right away with better placed focal point or another with the foreground perfectly clear then blend the images in post processing. Next time.

When I uploaded the images, I had to look very closely to see if what I thought were animal faces were really animals. Do you see any in the upper image?

This was taken with my 17-55mm for a wider shot, closer to the edge and better focus. It was about a half hour later and the sun had set. (42mm, 13 sec, f/22, ISO 100) I got the clarity I wanted but the change in lens and angle created a much bigger gap between the rocky layers.

I pulled both images into Photoshop to layer the best of both images but the difference in the smoothness of the water and the focus vs out of focus grasses on the lower left were beyond my current skills (and time required) to tackle.

By the way, here’s where I thought I saw something seeing me…