This is the first part of a two-part post Bill wrote about his recent trips to Great Falls. For those who haven’t heard about my adventures in Tennessee last week – my trip got cut short when I slipped down a hill and ended up in an ER getting three stitches in my head. I also came home with a pretty spectacular black eye 🙂 – Patty
While Patty was off photographing fall color in the Smoky Mountains and touring Tennessee’s fine emergency health care system, I got to say home and mind the ranch. With the approach of the weekend, I decided to check out Great Falls National Park (a favorite haunt of ours) to see if there were any good fall color photo opportunities. I did a little exploring on Saturday between rain drops and found a trail I hadn’t found before, leading to some rocks with a nice view of the falls (hiking boots are reccommended to make the rock hopping a little more comfortable). Since Sunday promised to be clear, I headed backfirst thing in the morning to set up for some nice fall color along the falls.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
The place was completely socked in with fog. This photos shows my view camera set up with fog completely obscuring the falls (my dark cloth is over the camera to keep it dry!). So what to do while waiting for the fog to burn off? I got to practice some types of photography that aren’t usually my “style”.
First – a little theatre of the absurd – “Bored photographer”
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
I took a photo of a photographer photographing another photographer (who, for all I know, may have been photographing another photographer off in the mist). Someone was photographing me with the the view camera, but not while I was taking this shot.
Since the weather still wasn’t cooperating for grand scenics, I decided to try a few close up photos.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
This web was covered with the morning dew, and sparkles against the subdued background in the fog. The soft light can also bring out saturated colors, as in the this small strand of Virginia Creeper on a rock.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
Please note – if you see a similar plant with three leaves instead of five – it’s probably poison ivy.
The fog finally started burning off – although the sun was a little bit higher in the sky than I would have liked, there was still some golden light, and I could catch the falls with some of the remaining mist. Here’s one of my ranging shots that I took around using my 4X5 camera to give you a taste of the scene. I still have to send the transparencies off to the lab for processing . . .
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
Part II of Bill’s post on his trip to Great Falls will be posted later in the week.