Chasing Water (falls)

The first day in weeks where it was sunny and warm.  Warm enough to warrant getting out of bed at 7am and stowing gear in the car and heading two hours up the road to DuPont State Park to check out Hooker Falls.  It’s a good time of year to visit with your camera.  The tourists have not arrived and the locals are still cold enough to stay tucked up at home.  And  ……..the Park Rangers are not yet on deck so you can sneak off trail and get some shots that you would not otherwise be able to get during the busy season!

There were oodles of fly fishermen (and women) around today, catching trout apparently!  Standing right in the middle of the river in their waders, just right where you did not want them to be if you were taking a photograph.  Thankfully they wiggle about a bit and since I was taking mostly long exposures, they kind of disappear!

I was pretty patient with my camera today.  Barely shot 100 pix for the outing and have figured that I need to shoot more bracketed exposures to get the waterfalls just right.  You smooth and blur the water with the Long Exposure to the extent that you end up with a lot of blown out highlights, so it’s a fine line to walk, especially on a sunny day and of course I’d left my ND LE cheat sheet in the other camera bag so that did not help!

Best of all it was just lovely to be out and about, hiking in the mountains in the sunshine and just enjoying “being”!