Christopher Jordan Photography Photoblog
naturally exquisite ~ wildly elegant
New locations, new possibilities
I arrived in Bar Harbor, Maine Tuesday evening, and then picked up my buddy and fellow photographer Patrick Matthiessen at the airport Wednesday morning. We are now in the midst of a 5 1/2 day visit to Acadia National Park…and I have already run out of superlatives to use. What an amazing place. Yesterday, I started off the morning down by the ocean not really knowing what I would find or really even where to go. Despite my lack of knowledge of the area, I managed to come away with this to start my day.
Bennet Cove Sunrise
Penobscot Pano
A light show extraordinaire
This morning was my last morning in the White Mountains, and the area evidently decided to send me off with a flourish. It was the first morning all week that there were actually some clouds in the sky and the possibility of sunrise color. I fortunately was up early enough to go check it out….and as I came driving over the crest of the Kancamagus Pass, I was greeted by this….uh….WOW.
Kancamagus Sunrise
White Mountains Splendor
Morning light…
Morning is my favorite time to photograph….always fun to see what the day will bring and how the land will unfold in front of you. This morning was quite nice.
Beaver Pond ~ Morning
Details, details
The grand landscape is, well, grand and all, and I like shooting it when I can. However, the light this week has not been friendly for grand landscapes – it’s either been shadow or blazing sun with nothing in between. Cameras don’t like those extremes, and really neither do I. So…sometimes you just have to concentrate on the details.
Fall Trees ~ Franconia Notch
Rocks ~ Water
Persistence pays…
I decided that yesterday was going to be waterfall day. That decision meant that the most logical place to go would be the Falling Waters trail in Franconia Notch State Park. (Actually, there are several good options here for a waterfall day, but the trail is close and I wanted to check it out!) I hit the trail just before sunrise, and started hiking…me and hundreds of my closest hiking friends. The traffic on the trail was amazing – literally a constant stream (pun) of people headed up the trail. Most of them were hiking to the summit of Mt Lincoln and/or Mt Lafayette I suspect. It was easily the busiest trail I’ve ever seen. Anyway, I took a few shots early in the trail, and then found the first waterfall. It was nice, and I spent a bit of time there…..
Stairs Falls
A small waterfall guide I found noted there are 3 waterfalls along the first part of the trail, each getting successively bigger. Almost immediately after this waterfall, the second waterfall appeared. It’s an interesting falls in that it’s a little hard to get a good angle on it based on the way it tumbles down the cliff, but I did my best!
Swiftwater Falls
Proceeding up the trail, I was looking for the third waterfall. The mini-guide I have notes that one of the falls is a cascade, and in about 5 more minutes I came to what seemed to fit that bill – a long cascade that was pretty high overall. I figured I had found the third falls, which wasn’t quite what I was expecting but it was also fun so I spent a fair amount of time there as well. Here is a portion of the top of the cascade…..which continues a good 40-50 feet past this portion.
Dry Brook Cascade
(And yes, for you eagle eyes out there this stream is called Dry Brook – which yesterday was an amusing name given the amount of water flowing.) At this point I figured I had found my 3 waterfalls, and was debating whether or not to head back down, or keep climbing … it’s a fairly steep trail. Since the light was still good, I figured I’d go a little further and see what I could find. AFter no more than another minute or two of hiking I stepped off the trail to check out a section of the stream. Looking upstream, I saw (and heard) what sounded like another waterfall…! So I kept hiking to see what it was….and found this.
Cloudland Falls
This waterfall is every bit as dramatic and impressive as you might imagine in looking at the photo…maybe more so. (I think the mini-guide must not be counting the long cascade that I thought was the third falls as a true waterfall…) This is easily one of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen. I just shook my head as I started photographing the falls, thinking that I almost turned around and headed back to the parking lot before I got to this falls. Thankfully I kept searching and exploring…it would have been really disappointing if I had stopped hiking less than 10 minutes from this gorgeous location. Persistence pays…..
Evening quiet
Today was my first full day in the White Mountains, and it was very busy, very bright, and very unusual for me to run into so many other photographers. I’m used to being in places where I am the only photographer. I saw more photographers today than I think I ever have on any single day since I started shooting almost 15 years ago. You’d think the area is known for fall color or something! However, I waited them all out and had this overlook to my self by the time a little tinge of color showed up in the sky….I really love morning shooting, but a very quiet evening like this is a great way to end the day. (this one is pretty tricky to get right – please excuse if it’s too dark or the colors are off! Working on a laptop is not the most precise adjustment process.)
Sugar Hill Overlook - White Mountains
Musings
Since I have much more time and more energy than yesterday, a few musings…..
First, I just completed my time in the Adirondacks and while I have many thoughts and impressions I must start by asking anyone reading this to keep the entire area in your thoughts. Having driven a couple of times through towns that were flooded by Hurricane Irene, you simply cannot believe the damage and the overwhelming amount of water that pounded the region. I drove by many houses or buildings where you could clearly see water marks as high as half way up the front door – and this in places as much as 10-15 feet above the river level. The quantity of water that came through is impossible to describe, or imagine. As I drove out of the area this morning I saw that someone had marked the high water line for flooding from Irene, and it would have completely covered my vehicle while on the road….and was probably 20 feet above the current water level. I saw places where lots of people in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire are still trying to clean up and repair. Keep them all in mind.
Second, the Adirondacks are simply incredible and I encourage anyone so inclined to visit. Just bring plenty of time, a fair amount of gas (the place is enormous) and very good hiking shoes. Even the “simple” trails up the “small” mountains are quite steep and arduous (spoken like an Indiana flat land boy, I know). I truly just scratched the surface of what there is to see. Oh, and Lake Placid seems a cool little town…
Third, a shout out to a new photographic acquaintance I made on top of Mt. Jo yesterday evening (see yesterday’s post). Adam Baker was up there as well and we ended up spending the evening shooting the surrounding mountains. Adam was kind enough to mention a few places he had already visited and noted that the Nichols Brook area just outside of Keene was very nice. So I checked it out before leaving this morning and he was right. Thanks Adam….it was fun shooting last night and I appreciate the tip this morning…which led to this….
Nichols Brook and Fall Color
Wish you were here…
I’m too tired to post anything lengthy tonight, but I had to share at least a portion of the incredible view I witnessed. Hiked to the top of one of the smaller mountains with a fabulous view into the heart of the High Peaks region. Wish you all could have been there to see this in person…..
View of High Peaks from Mt Jo
f8 (or something) and BE there
It’s a given of landscape photography that you can’t capture meaningful images if you aren’t actually out somewhere shooting. Sitting at home and dreaming about a location or arguing the finer points of camera gear won’t produce images. Sometimes it pays to be out even when it doesn’t seem useful….like today for example. The weather was changing a lot today, but always seemed to veer back to overcast and rainy. This afternoon I went out to a location I saw 2 days ago thinking it might be interesting to see if I could catch a shot of a waterfall that is way up high on a cliff. It was raining when I got there, so I waited about 30-40 minutes and got enough clearing that I took a few shots. Then I noticed an interesting arrangement of trees in fall color on the far side of the lake. I composed a shot, and as I started to focus a very strong gust of wind came whistling through the area – it was blowing so hard I could see the movement in my Live View screen on the camera. No way I was going to get a sharp image….so I waited just to see if it would leave as quickly as it came. Sure enough, no more than 2-3 minutes of strong wind, then suddenly it died down to a fairly gentle breeze. Amazingly, a break in the clouds came at that exact moment and lit up the trees I was focused on beautifully (first really pretty direct light I’ve seen since I got here). I rapidly double checked focus (good), and fired off about 5 shots before the light disappeared. It was perhaps the quickest and most rapidly changing light I’ve ever seen. If I hadn’t been there, ready to go, no way I would have captured the light that appeared….
birch glow - Upper Cascade Lake
Art in Nature – x2
Now that I’ve visited several locations here in the Adirondack Park (I’m practically an expert….NOT) it seems that someone, or someones, are making little rock towers all over the area. I’ve seen them in the Au Sable river in a number of places, found a small one on a trail, another in a stream next to one of the trails, etc. I don’t know if it’s some tradition around here that lots of people do or if a single person or small group just goes around making them, but they are an enjoyable quirk of the area so far. If anyone out there knows whether this has some significance I don’t know, please share. Anyway, I laughed out loud when I found one 10 feet out from the shore of Middle Saranac Lake. So I share it with you all today – this Zen Moment sponsored by Christopher Jordan Photography. Say OHM (and keep reading please!)
Rock Tower in the reeds - Middle Saranac
I love finding these little towers all around, but I have to say that nature doesn’t really need much help when it comes to being artistic. The lake was beautiful today, mostly because it was pretty calm and the clouds were incredibly dramatic. Of course, me being me, I photographed them in a slightly unusual way….this is one exposure, looking down. I can’t wait to see this one at home on my large computer screen. I hope the colors are at least close – hard to tell on a small laptop.
