A Fall Day at Great Falls – Part II

Here’s the second part of Bill’s post about his recent trips to Great Falls National Park.

As the morning fog burned off, I was able to photograph the falls at Great Falls with some of the remaining mist. Here’s another view of the Falls in the mist.

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

As I was pakcing up, the kayakers came out, so I got a couple of shots of the lunatics, ahem, I mean highly experience kayakers, going over the large set of falls near the Virginia side of the river. Some of the kayakers climbed up the rocks with their kayaks for at least a second run over the falls.

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

I only had my 28-135 zoom with me for the DSLR, so I don’t have any close-up photos of the kayakers. I like these photos as they show the rouch waters they were navigating.

And one final photo for the day – as I was walking out of the park – I saw person using what looked like a surfboard designed for river use. The person was standing on the board, paddling with the long paddle.

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

So my lessons for the weekend were:

1. Keep going back to places you like to photograph – you might just find something new.
2. Just because the weather doesn’t cooperate doesn’t mean you can’t take interesting photographs.
3. A little fog is a great way of adding to the sense of perspective in your photos, as distant things rapidly fade in the mist.
4. Photographing thick fog is a great way to find that your DSLR sensor is desperately in need of cleaning.
5. I’m never, ever, ever, going over Great Falls in a kayak (although I’ll admit I kind of knew this before this trip – not I’m really sure!)

A Fall Day at Great Falls – Part I

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.

Fall Color Along the Potomac River

Every fall, Bill and I head out to photograph the wonders of the changing leaves. Over the years, one of our favorite local places to look for great fall color has been along the Potomac River in Maryland. Since the C&O Canal National Park runs along much of the river bank, most of the area is undeveloped.

Here are some of our favorite fall photos from along the Potomac River.

Taken near the C&O Canal’s Lock 8

Fall on the Potomac (c) 2004 William Lawrence

Great Falls Tavern in late afternoon light.

Great Falls Tavern (c) 2006 Patty Hankins

Great Falls with the trees on the Virginia shore ablaze with color.

Autumn at Great Falls (c) 2006 Patty Hankins

Since the leaves are starting to really change color in our area now, I’m sure we’ll be out photographing along the Potomac in the next few weeks trying to get more photos of the river with fall color.

Great Falls on the Potomac River

One of our favorite waterfalls to photograph is Great Falls on the Potomac River. Located about 15 miles from Washington, DC, Great Falls is just a short drive away and every time we visit – the photographic opportunities are different.

Great Falls can be photographed from two National Parks – the Great Falls Park in Virginia and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Park in Maryland. To see the falls from the C&O Canal Park – you need to enter the park at the Great Falls Tavern Area at 11710 MacArthur Blvd in Potomac.

Here are some of our favorite photos of Great Falls.

The first photo is one I took earlier this summer from Virginia. It shows the area above the falls.

Above Great Falls (c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Bill took this photo in late April a couple of years ago a few days after some major spring storms. The water level was very high as the runoff from the storms came down the river from West Virginia.

Great Falls (c) 2005 William Lawrence

A couple of months later, Bill returned to the falls to photograph them with a lower water level. He went out to park early on a Saturday morning to figure out exactly how long after sunrise the sun hit the rocks. The next morning, he photograph this view of Great Falls from the first overlook on the Virginia side of the river.

Great Falls II (c) 2005 William Lawrence

I took this next photo earlier this summer. We’d had some big rain storms so the water was once again rushing over the rocks at the center of the river.

Great Falls Rocks (c) 2008 Patty Hankins

The final photo is one taken from the overlook on Olmstead Island on the Maryland side of the river. It shows the falls with the trees in Virgina ablaze with fall color.

Autumn at Great Falls (c) 2006 Patty Hankins

Bill and I are out at Great Falls pretty regularly – so I’m sure we’ll be posting more photos of the area in the future. Hope you enjoy them.

10 Tips for Photographing Waterfalls

Great Falls II (c) 2005 William Lawrence

One of Bill’s and my favorite types of landscapes to photograph are waterfalls. If you’ve had a chance to check out our website, or have seen our booth at one of our shows, you have probably already figured out that we love waterfalls and that Great Falls on the Potomac River is one of our favorite sets of falls.

Bill took the photo at the top of this post from the second overlook at Great Falls National Park in Virginia. I love the way the light makes the rocks glow in this photo. To capture the light, Bill went out to Great Falls early on a Saturday morning to figure out how long after sunrise the light hits the rocks. The next morning, he was there, all set up and ready with his large format camera to take the photo just as the sun rose about the ridge line.

As we’ve built our collection of waterfall photographs, we’ve made a few (ok, more than a few) mistakes and learned a few things. Here are a few tips that we hope will help you take great waterfall photos of your own.

1. Shutter speed is important in waterfall photography! Tastes vary in how people like to see the water flowing over waterfalls presented in a photograph, but we prefer using a slower shutter speed for a motion effect to the water. A fast shutter speed will show individual waves and droplets in the water, but a slower shutter speed actually shows the path that the water travels – the slope of the water off the fall, the arcs of the water as it splashes off a rock on the way down the falls. For us, this makes a more interesting picture. Typically, we’ll try for a shutter speed of ½ to 1 second if we can, but will try to at least keep the shutter slower than 1/15 of a second.

2. ISO matters. To keep the shutter speed slow, we use a low ASA film (we often use 50 ASA) or set the ISO on the digital camera as low as it will go (usually 100).

3. Use filters if you have them. If the light is bright enough, we may not be able use the shutter speed we want to. When this happens we use either a neutral density filter or a polarizing filter can be used to drop the shutter speed.

4. Use a tripod. With slow shutter speeds, you will need a tripod to steady the camera. Also, remember that with a shutter speed this low, anything moving in the picture other than the water (e.g. people, foliage blowing in the wind) will also be blurred.

5. Make sure the camera is level. A photograph of water that appears to be flowing uphill is very disturbing. I really try to remember to use my bubble level – and to make sure it is level for my waterfall photos. I’ve deleted more waterfall photos than I care to remember of water running uphill in the picture.

6. Direction matters. Remember to check the direction of the falls, to determine the best time of day for light hitting the falls to give the most dramatic photograph. Great Falls is best photographed in the morning.

7. Seasons matter. Check out the falls in different seasons, e.g. does it look best with new spring foliage? Best in the fall with the leaves turning? Some other time? Since spring and fall tend to be the wettest times of the year, these are usually good times to catch falls at their peak levels.

8. Research before you go. Learn what you can about the falls, and what you’ll need photographically, before you get there. If you know that name of a waterfall you want to photograph, search for it on Google. Chances are someone has posted information about photographing that set of falls somewhere on the web.

9. Be prepared to do some hiking. Most of the waterfalls we have been to involve some hiking in hilly terrain (it is tough to have a waterfall over perfectly flat land). So don’t forget comfortable hiking shoes for the trail, a water bottle (especially in hot weather), sunscreen and bug spray.

10. Takes lots of photos at various exposures. You may be surprised at what you discover what your preferences for waterfall photography are.

If you’ve got any tips for taking photos of waterfalls, please add them below as a comment. We’d love to hear your tips.

Dutchman’s Breeches and Squirrel Corn

This spring, I was able to photograph two wildflowers – Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra Cucullaria) and Squirrel Corn (Dicentra Canadensis) – that are closely related to the Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra Spectabilis) I photographed at Brookside Gardens.

The first set of Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra Cucullaria) I found were at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC. There were several Dutchman’s Breeches plants in the Fern Valley area of the Arboretum.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

The plant gets its name from the flowers, which look like men’s pants hanging upside down from a laundry line.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

About a week later, I was at Great Falls National Park in Virginia. On the path heading down to the water between the second and third overlook, I found some Dutchman’s Breeches growing along the side of the trail.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Dutchman’s Breeches are a native plant growing in both woods and in clearings. The plants grow to about 12″ tall, with spurred heart/triangle shaped petals about 5/8″ of an inch in size. The petals grow in groups of 4 to 12 hanging from the raceme. They usually bloom in April and May.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

When I was in Tennessee for the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I was able to photograph some Squirrel Corn (Dicentra Candadensis). The Squirrel Corn I saw was along the Cove Hardwood Trail, which begins at the parking lot of the Chimneys Picnic Area.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Like Dutchman’s Breeches, Squirrel Corn grows to about 12″ tall and blooms in April and May. The flowers are about 1/2″ long, heart/oval shaped growing in clusters on the raceme. The plant gets its name from the corms (underground plant stems) – which are shaped like sweet corn kernels. Apparently squirrels like to dig up the corms and eat them.

I’ve really enjoyed photographing the wildflowers this year – and discovering which of the wildflowers are related to one another and to some of flowers being cultivated in gardens.

Saturday at the C&O Canal National Park

This past Saturday, Bill and I spent some time at the section of the C&O Canal National Park in Potomac, Maryland. The C&O Canal National Park stretches 184 miles starting in Georgetown in the District of Columbia and ending in Cumberland, Maryland.

C&O Canal National Park is one of our favorite parks to photograph in. Not only does it have the canal, but the section at Potomac, Maryland has a wonderful overlook of Great Falls on the Potomac River. There are some nice hiking trails through the forest, and lot of interesting buildings and structure to photograph. On weekends, there are often historical reenactors working in the park.

On this trip, Bill was trying out his newest camera – a Canon Rebel XTi (400D) converted by LifePixel to infrared. All of his photos in this post were taken with the infrared camera.

Here are some of the photos we took this weekend.

Last year, the Park Service placed new canal boats into service. Here is the Charles F Mercer which is based in Potomac. Canal boat rides, complete with mules towing the boat, are offered five days a week in this part of the park.

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

A view along the C&O Canal from the towpath. Lock 18 can be seen in the distance.

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

This little waterfall is beside Lock 19 on the canal.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

One of the plants growing along the boardwalk over Olmsted Island. We have no clue what the plant is – but we liked the way it looks.

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

Finally, here’s a photograph of Great Falls taken from the Overlook on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. The water level is higher than usual for this time of year. Usually by mid-June, many more rocks are showing in the river and the falls.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

The C&O Canal National Park is worth visiting. You can see some of our other photos from the C&O Canal park on our website.

Experimenting with Digital Infrared Photography

Recently, Bill has been doing some experimenting with digital infrared photography. Infrared photography can give an “otherworldly” look to your photographs. Foliage tends to reflect infrared, so leaves, grass and such tend to be near white. Still water and clear skies go quite dark, but clouds remain light. Below is a photo of a waterfall at Olmsted Island at the C&O Canal National Park in Maryland (this is on the path to Great Falls at the park – usually there is only a trickle of water here but the waterlevel was quite high when he took this recently). The leaves are the brightest objects in the picture, and the water before the falls is quite dark.

Falls Alongside Olmsted Island (c) 2008 William Lawrence

The sensors on most digital cameras are sensitive to light beyond what the human eye is sensitive to. The result is that the sensors can “see” a broader spectrum of light than the eye can. To keep this from interfering with photographs, camera manufacturers place a filter over the sensors to block out most of the light outside of the visual range.

However, some of the older Digital SLRs are still sensitive to near infrared light, which is not visible to the naked eye. A quick test of this on your camera is to take it into a darkened room with a TV remote control (most work with infrared light). Point the control at the camera and take a picture while activating the remote control. If you see light on the photo, you camera is capturing infrared light and displaying it in the visual spectrum so that you can see it.

Bill tried this with our old Canon D30 (note not a 30D – this is one we got in 2000) and found that it was sensitive to infrared light. He converted it for digital infrared photography by getting an infrared filter for it (a Cokin P007 infrared filter). You can’t see through the filter, so all composing has to be done before you put the filter on the camera. Also, while the camera does capture light in the near infrared spectrum, most of it is blocked. Most of Bill’s exposures were in the range of 3-10 seconds at f11 at ISO 400 in broad daylight.

Infrared can make an interesting addition to your photographic techniques. Bill is getting a DSLR modified specifically for infrared photography – more on this once we get the camera back and have a chance to use it.

In the meantime – here’s one more infrared photograph taken at Great Falls. This time from the Virginia side of the Potomac River in the Great Falls National Park.

(c) 2008 William Lawrence

If you’d like to see some of Bill’s digital infrared photography in person – please stop by our booth at one of our shows.

Virginia Bluebells at Great Falls National Park

Over the weekend, Bill and I spent some time at Great Falls National Park in Virginia. Bill photographed the falls – and I spent my time photographing the wildflowers.

Along the path to the first overlook, I found two beds of Virginia Bluebells. The plants to the left of the trail were much easier to photograph – the ones on the right were down in a gully. To reach those flowers, I would have had to go a ways off the trail to get my tripod into place. The ones on the left were easily accessible – and I could leave my backpack on the trail – rather than risk putting it down on other plants.

There were several bluebell plants in the area – all in various stages of blooming. Here are some of my favorite photos from this weekend. The plants were 12 – 18″ tall.

Here are two side by side – with several others in the background.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

And some closer in photos of the flowers.

Virginia Bluebells (c) 2008 Patty Hankins

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

The bluebells will probably be blooming for a few more weeks at Great Falls. I’ve also seen bluebells at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC and at McCrillis Gardens in Bethesda, MD this spring. The ones at Great Falls were the easiest to access.

If you get a chance to get out to Great Falls National Park in the next few weeks – be sure to take some time to look at the Virginia Bluebells and other wildflowers. They are lovely at this time of year – and in just a few weeks, they will be gone until next year.