Friday Photo #3 (special Sunday edition)

Falls on Rock Bridge Branch

A much more recent photo, this was taken on New Year's Eve. We'd taken a trip to Red River Gorge for a long weekend, and taken some short hikes to see notable features in the area. This little falls, about 300 yards from Rock Bridge, provide a beautiful highlight of the stratified sandstone ridge.

The composition provides an interesting challenge, at least in the winter. There are only a few good shooting locations if you're not willing to get wet, and the main one is really the only decent choice. I tried a few different compositions, which both offer a larger field of view. I change my mind regarding which one I prefer. This one provides the best sense of the surrounding forest, surprisingly green for late December. The exposure time here is 0.8 sec, which does a good job of streaming the falls without adding unusual effects to the more still pools of water.

I haven't yet worked on this in any detail. I'd be inclined to crop the bright sunlit rhododendron leaves on the right side of the image. That's tricky though because I don't want to lose the darker shadowed rhododendron behind it, which offers a nice counterpoint to the falls.

I'd love to come back here when it's well below freezing; this must make a beautiful scene in the snow, or when it starts to melt. Late summer would be interesting too.