Potomac River's Great Falls

[Mike Buckley]

After having made this photo of a small, frozen waterfall a couple of days ago, I went just a few miles farther down the road to where the Potomac River goes through Great Falls National Park. It's a far larger body of water that moves far faster, so the only ice that is in the cascades is from snow on the rocks that melted and refroze during the melt.

Please click the photos to view them at the larger size.

[Wavelength]

Really impressive

[jamn4ex]

For some reason I now want a hot chocolate. I like the color best. I really like the fact that you anchored the shot with the clump of rock in lower left hand side. I also get the urge to toss a fly into the pool under the falls.

[Geoff F]

Yes the colour version works best for me. There isn't a lot of 'strong' colour but plenty of subtle tints which don't seem to be fully transferring into the monochrome alternative.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, guys!

For some reason I now want a hot chocolate.

After spending two hours standing at my camera with the temperature at 15 degrees Fahrenheit/-9 degrees Celsius, the very first thing that I did on my way home was to buy a cup of hot chocolate. There was a 15 mile-per-hour wind one hour before I arrived at the scene, which fortunately completely stopped by the time I arrived.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[Mike Buckley]

There isn't a lot of 'strong' colour but plenty of subtle tints which don't seem to be fully transferring into the monochrome alternative.

That could be due to the way that I post-processed it. I used more contrast in the black-and-white image because, for me, it emphasized the detailed power of the rushing water.

[Mike Buckley]

I added the third photo for those of you who seem to prefer the color versions of this scene.

[Brownbear]

I especially adore the 3rd image (which I suspect is not colour) because I see the gorgeous light best in this image.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Christina. The third image is full color.

[Manfred M]

Very nice shots Mike - I do prefer the colour versions, but then, the pallette is pretty restricted to begin with, so we are not overwhelmed by too much colour.

All those folks that tell us how nice the winter shots look have no idea how tough it is to make these types of images, given the heavy clothing one has to wear to do this type of photography. Even then, the cold and wind do get to you. I wonder if you were tempted to pour that hot chocolate on your feet to warm up your toes.

[jamn4ex]

wear layers.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Manfred.

I used chemical hand warmers that worked perfectly, so much so that I wish I had somehow put them in my shoes under the front part of my socks. I use Swix gloves that keep my hands reasonably warm while still allowing me to operate all of the camera settings. Ironically, when I got home I noticed that a hole in the left index finger has developed. You would think the right index finger would wear out first because of manipulating the sub-command dial on the front of the camera, but not so.

[Mike Buckley]

wear layers.

Tough to do for our hands and feet. The real issue, though, was that the temperatures I was enduring are far lower than normally experienced in our area, so there was no ideal clothing in my closet. Even so, the only parts of my body that became noticeably cold, somewhat painful, were my toes.

[rpcrowe]

Very nice images... I am torn between the color and B&W versions but, have thrown in the towel and decided that I like both equally!

[Mike Buckley]

Pick up the towel, Richard. That's better than having your wife mad at you for leaving it on the floor.

[Downrigger]

Great series - I appreciate the light you have (and must have sought out in your timing of this). I do like the temp in the first - clearly just matter of taste - but, to me, speaks to the air temp and is more hot chocolate-o-genic.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Mark!

About the light...

I showed up before sunrise because the weather experts residing in the top right corner of my computer's desktop advised me that sunrise would be partly cloudy. I was hoping to get a really expansive view of the falls with some colorful clouds in the sky. There wasn't a single cloud above the falls in the two hours I was there.

This is the first outdoor shoot when my auto white balance wasn't effective. It was unbelievably erratic from frame to frame, so I selected the best shot ignoring white balance and adjusted it. I then made some local adjustments to the color balance.

[pnodrog]

Good series. The composition of the second shot(crop) and have a slight bias to favouring the B&W version. The first shot ilustrates the setting more fully but I am wondering if cropping a bit of both the top and bottom to make a more panoramic shot would work better.

[Mike Buckley]

I agree that a more panoramic version of the first photo would work well, as would other variations.

Just in case it's helpful to know, the first photo was made with an 85mm lens and the second one was made with a 180mm lens. The second photo is cropped only at the sides to render an 8 x 10 aspect ratio.