The Delaware Water Gap in search of flowing water

(deer leap falls)

I’ve been wanting to go back and photograph waterfalls for a while now. I am fortunate to have an abundance of them within a 2-3hr drive of me. Normally I drive north in search of many I am familiar with. Although I plan on visiting them soon enough I wanted to try some new ones. One awfully popular place is the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation area. This location is just filled with all sorts of streams and waterfalls. We left for them mid-day so time was limited, but we sure had fun. Many exist in close proximity maximizing the fun and the time you have to shoot. One last tip for getting out there is making the best use of that GPS you may have. A website that is an incredible resource for points of interest is http://www.poi-factory.com/ Registration is free and has no spam (none I have received at least so far) and its users on their own time combine all sorts of awesome and convenient locations into POI files. Using a POI loader from your GPS company (Garmin for me) you add such things as McDonald’s, national parks, and in this case waterfall locations! Ever browse the web trying to map them out? Well It’s all there! Of course do this at your own risk as sometimes the location are exact and you will need to look for a trail head, but you can’t ask for much more. And in case your like me and don’t want to trust your life to a GPS unit check out www.geology.com Might sound odd, but with a bit of investigation into their map section they have pinpointed GPS locations of waterfalls in many states. Both great tools and make our lives just a little bit easier.

Now for the good stuff. Our starting location was the George W. Childs Recreation Site within the park. There are three waterfalls at the location: Fulmer, Factory, and Deer Leap Falls. I’m not so curious as to the origin of the last one, heh. Once we scraped our way into the gravel lot and passed the porta-jons it was on to the waterfalls (when you make the turn into the gravel lot there is a bit of a drop off; learned that the hard way .) We choose to start with Deer Leap Falls as we figured starting from the bottom was the best bet and less effort; whom are we kidding am I right? When you get to these falls you’ll love the setup, but you’ll ask yourself where’s the foreground?! My next photo will give you an idea of what I was up against. There was nothing in front of it, but a long stretch of shallow water.  What you don’t see in the image from Wiki is this row of rocks sticking up (bottom left and man made to my knowledge.) I had to get something to lead us all into the picture, but only had this to work with. The walls were to far away and just getting the falls point blank left things flat and boring. With the water being quite shallow I walked out onto the rocks and positioned myself to the left off setting the falls. Setting up my composition. Using my 17-50mm (75mm on the end using  a cropped sensor) I went to the telephoto end. This allows the visual compression of the scene. It’s no 400mm or something crazy, but it’s enough to bring the elements in the frame closer. Zooming out wide would have left the waterfall tiny and the gap between the rocks and the falls wanting more.

A few more tips when it comes to all my waterfall photos is using a polarizer. Not only will it take 2 stops of light away from the scene, but it will also reduce reflections and help to add slight saturation. There are two things to address within that sentence. Why not a neutral density or neutral density grad filter and how do you mean by saturation? Well, when shooting waterfalls you aim for cloudy days or better yet overcast. This will provide for slower speeds and a softer light with less reflections. The overcast skies will allow for the use of a polarizer being sufficient for the task. That being to lower the light levels and more importantly it will cut the silver reflective effect the clouds will have on wet/slick surfaces. It’s much better as a multi tool then a split or regular grad filter. Gradient filters do have their place, particularly the split version if you want to bring in a sky that is just way out of your cameras dynamic range. I try to predict the conditions the best I can to set up a situation where I will have the most luck possible. As for the saturation. Besides some polarizers having a warming effect, it’s more the issue of this grey wash you see when you take a standard raw photo in a forest with water. It all looks washed out. It’s the reflections on the leaves and reflective wet surfaces dulling it all. As soon as you put it on you can see the magic happen. No plug-in will fix that. The last thing to do is change your white balance to cloudy. It is just way too cool a kelvin temperature (white balance is measured in kelvin temperature) to leave it in auto mode. Shade is an option, but it can be extreme if it isn’t that dark. Paired both of those and you’re ready to shoot. As for shutter speed anything slower then 30th of a second will start to produce those creamy falls we all seem to enjoy. Balance it out though. I don’t like to run the shutter forever as sometimes it is just too much, but they rules are meant to be broken.

I wanted to go natural for the first shot eliminating the above bridge. However I did bring it in for the vertical. My foreground as you can see is limited, but you need to make the most of what your given. This is a subject I will look forward to going back to and making the best of it. The second image seems much more a tug of war visually bringing you to the falls and back to the rocks again. I encourage you to visit and see what you can come up with.

When I first saw Fulmer falls on the way down to Deep Leap falls I was a tad disappointed. The foliage blocked the view and you couldn’t get close as it’s blocked off by the wooden plank trail. A surprise awaited us though as we climbed up and to the left of the falls. An access point can be found where you gain access to the falls. The water was flowing from the recent rain and the sounds produced were thunderous. This was shot with my 10-20mm and on the wide end! That’s how close I was able to get. The beauty of this section was the variety and how you can alter the photograph with a shift, change, or zoom of the lens.

Same waterfall, but with a close up on the tiered portion of the falls. It created a beautiful cascade that I was dying to capture. I missed the last waterfall by a mistake on my part. The path didn’t seem clear so with the dwindling light I decided to move on to another location; Dingmans Falls. No loss however as the next site was just as stupendous as the last and gave me more the reason to return.

Dingmans falls is a more modern area. Rightfully so as it has a ranger station full of rangers there to answer any questions that you may have. The parking lot is paved and the boardwalk maintained. It’s perfect for the whole family or just a short excursion. As you depart the parking lot and cross Dingmans creek you come upon a thin and narrow yet very tall three tiered falls. At first you ask yourself if they are kidding by adding this to the sights. When you begin to try and frame it the fun really happens though. There’s nothing like a challenge. You can see from the lighting that the clouds were parting and it was time to snap that shutter at the right moment. Going at a less busy time is the best way to do it. The bridge will pass on vibration and there is not enough light to hand hold it. Plus why would you want to? A tripod works just fine (don’t forget that L-bracket.) When no one is walking (including yourself; I’ve seen it happen) the vibration is kept to a minimum and doesn’t appear in your images.

Playing with the light and seeing how there were a lot of dark shadows I wanted to give HDR a try. Now one of the frames was a 15 second exposure! So you can sure bet I was hoping the kissy couple behind me wasn’t going to move. I think the lighting was perfect. It gave just enough for the falls, but more importantly to the forest on the right. It pulled it right into the picture and doesn’t distract you. I did a tonal contrast pass for this image to make it pop with all the minute detail in the image. Also remember to set your black point in post. HDR tends to make blacks gray as its exposing your shadows and not leaving them out.

The biggest surprise of the evening: Dingmans Falls. It just takes you back. It’s the biggest in Pennsylvania second only to Raymondskill.  Flowing at 130ft providing more mist and water then a person could ask for. I personally fell in love with its rich rock face full of mosses, ferns and other leafy plants that are fed from the high humidity put off by the falls. Just a moment of true beauty.

(Taking in the moment)