Lighting

At the risk of stating the obvious, photography is all about the light.

That was never more clear to me than during our visit to Grand Falls this week.

I used to look through the viewfinder and be completely oblivious to the lighting and it’s shadows (what was I thinking?).  I’d take all these pictures and come home and wonder what that line was going across my photo.  Now I look at that and wonder how I couldn’t see that when I was there.

Case in point… on our trip to Grand Falls, this stark line struck directly through the center of the canyon.  The sun was going down, slowing putting all the fall pools and canyon completely in the shadows.

So I was forced to work fast on those areas that were still lit, and forget about the cool looking areas that were in the shadows.  Great light makes great photos.  Crappy light, well… you get the drift.

grandfalls shadowi

iciclefalls3PSi

Grand Falls in the snow

overlook2PSi

We just had this big snow storm, so we thought we take a trip out to Grand Falls to see if the falls were running. It was good news – bad news.  The falls weren’t really running… but they were frozen over and snowy, so they were pretty cool to look at.

icefallsPSi

Unfortunately, we missed the perfect lighting.  We thought we left in plenty of time to get there, but the shadows were already consuming the falls, making it difficult to catch good light.  Thus, our pictures were limited.  But we did get a couple shots.  We’ll just have to go back when there is more water / snow, and earlier with better light.  Next time.