Waterfalls. Oregon's. Columbia River Gorge and. Silver Falls State Park

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1 Updated - April Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America Published since 1989 T here is nothing quite so exhilarating as standing at the base of a cascade that s dropping from the rim of a cliff hundreds of feet over your head and crashing down with a roar that explodes into ice-cold spray. Many photographers love to photograph waterfalls. Each year I see dozens of travel, photo, and nature magazines using waterfall photos on their covers. If you enjoy photographing waterfalls, why not add a few new images to your stock files and enjoy a photo exploration of the Pacific Northwest? Have you been planning a trip down the Oregon Coast or is your business sending you to Portland soon? A half-hour drive east of Portland on Interstate 84 will take you into one of the densest concentrations of waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest the Columbia River Gorge. A few hours to the Waterfalls of Oregon's Columbia River Gorge and Silver Falls State Park south, you ll find some of Oregon s most beautiful waterfalls in Silver Falls State Park. Pack your camera gear and your raincoat. It s time to visit Oregon. Elowah Falls

2 issue 29 - page 2 PORTLAND is a fascinating city of interesting shops, museums, and architecture along tree-lined streets. It s a great place to stay over and enjoy a few days before or after your photography explorations of the Pacific Northwest. The ROSE GARDEN and the METRO WASHINGTON PARK ZOO are popular attractions in Portland. The zoo has an African Rain Forest exhibit with regular downpours that soak the crocodiles and pythons. Tmmmnhe largest river in the West, the Columbia River, follows most of the boundary between the states of Oregon and Washington. The authors of all my guide books written on the area seem to agree that the seventy-mile-long, thousand-foot-deep Gorge was carved quite recently geologically. Glaciers retreating northward at the end of the last ice age (about 13,000 years ago) released an impounded inland sea. As each glacier melted, ice and trapped boulders rushed to the Pacific, scouring vertical cliffs through the layers of volcanic lava that had formed the range of mountains we now call the Cascades. Cold, wet storms blowing in from the north Pacific rise over the Cascades and drop up to a hundred inches of rain on the west side of the range in a wet year and most years are wet. All this rain and all the snow melting from the slopes of Mount Hood flow downstream, over the edge of the gorge, and cascade down to the Columbia. There are seventy-one waterfalls listed in my guidebook on the Columbia Gorge. Almost all drop from the Oregon side of the river. The Washington side of the Columbia has eroded away over the centuries in a series of earth slides and, for most of the distance, the shoreline rolls gently down to the river. If you are a member of AAA, pick up a copy of the map called Columbia Gorge/Mt. Hoop Loop. Most of the waterfalls, the hiking trails, and the streams of the area are listed. All the back roads are included on this map. If you don t already have a copy, buy Delorme s Oregon Atlas and Gazetteer. With a good map, you can determine which back roads will take you to the waterfalls. Some of the side roads leading away from the gorge lead up and around the slopes of Mount Hood, miles from the best waterfalls. Other byways are still-used sections of the old Columbia River Highway, built back in 1915 the first paved road over Oregon s Cascades and one of the most ambitious and most scenic roads ever built in the Pacific Northwest. All but about twenty-five miles of that old highway are gone but a few short crumbling sections are still used by hikers. Driving the Columbia River Gorge, on the Oregon side of the river, is much faster if you stay on Interstate 84. This marvel of modern highway engineering has been carved out of the rock walls of the gorge in many places. In many other places, it follows the edge of the river. When I m photographing these waterfalls, I stay in the small town of Troutdale, Oregon, at the western end of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway. It s less than thirty minutes from Portland and not far from Portland International Airport. About fifty miles east of Troutdale, near the other end of the Gorge, is the town of Hood River, Oregon, where visitors will find a better selection of accommodations. Unless you are going camping, there are few lodgings between these towns. If you would like to stay awhile to photograph and explore, start your planning now. In this newsletter, I point out some of my favorite waterfalls, along the Columbia River Gorge, and in Silver Falls State Park, and I tell you what s involved in finding them. Some can be seen from the side of the road. Some are a short walk from your car. Others

3 issue 29 - page 3 require a long walk to reach. You won t need a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and you won t have to do any overnight backpacking. Here are a few of my favorites, of the hundreds and maybe thousands of waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest. You will enjoy a busy week trying to photograph the few I tell you about. Latourell Falls Latourell Falls drops 249 feet in a single leap down a sheer wall patterned with a texture of basalt columns. Latourell can be seen from the old scenic highway. The best view is from an open viewpoint just a short walk up a paved trail above the parking lot. A 28mm lens will frame the falls from there. A 24mm lens will include more of the stream below the falls. Another trail, a paved footpath, leads downward from the end of the parking lot to the base of the falls. The middle of the small bridge crossing the stream below the falls is another excellent spot to set up your tripod. Move in any closer and you ll quickly be soaked with spray. Down on the bridge, you need a 20mm or shorter lens and a vertical format to frame the falls from top to bottom and still include the cascades in the stream. Latourell Falls The paved footpath continues down the stream and takes you to the picnic area at Guy W. Talbot State Park. Turn around at the bridge for the shortest route back to your car. If you don t mind a strenuous hike and would like to see Upper Latourell Falls, continue up the trail above the parking lot. It climbs steeply to the top of Latourell Falls. The trail turns upstream for almost one mile through a forest that is mostly Douglas fir. The trail along the stream is lined with white blossoms of trillium in the spring and the red leaves of Oregon grape in the autumn. Tiny white blossoms of phlox can be found growing in bunches on the mossy canyon walls. The upper falls drops almost one-hundred feet. The trail passes behind the falls, and you can return on the other side of Latourell Creek. Shepperd s Dell The next waterfall you see driving east along the old highway is Shepperd s Dell. It drops hundreds of feet in a series of twists and drops down a narrow canyon. A short paved walkway leads down from the old highway to a good viewpoint for a photograph. You won t see the top or the bottom from the end of the walk. If you lean way out over the rail with a 28mm lens on your camera, you can frame a pretty good composition. There s not much spray or splashing here, even during high-water season. I once clamped a Hasselblad on a Bogen Super Clamp and hung it out over the metal railing on a Bogen Magic Arm to frame this one. Bridal Veil Falls There is a trail that descends to the base of Bridal Veil Falls. A walk from the parking lot to the base of the falls and back will take you thirty minutes. A sign at the trailhead says the round-trip hike is 2/3 of a mile. The trail crosses the stream on a bridge below the falls and ends on a raised wooden platform built in the location for the best view of this waterfall. I HOPE FOR AN OVERCAST DAY when I m photographing waterfalls. The lower light levels usually require extra-long exposures, especially when I m using small apertures to ensure adequate depthof-field. Small apertures mean long exposures and falling water can become a soft blur with exposures longer than a half-second. I ve found that an exposure of 1/8 or 1/15 second gives me the effect of falling water without freezing or blurring the water. Bridal Veil Falls

4 issue 29 - page 4 SHOULD YOU INCLUDE that small patch of sky above the waterfall in your photograph or should you crop it out? Does it improve the image or does the washed-out white spot draw your eye up and away from the waterfall, your intended centerof-interest? A polarizing filter may darken a blue sky enough to bring it into a reasonable range of lighting values that your film can record. If the sky in your viewfinder is four or more stops brighter than the visible shadow details you want to record, consider cropping it off. Wait until there are no other visitors standing on the platform before making an exposure. A 28mm lens will frame the full height of the falls. At the top of the falls, you see the the highway bridge that Bridal Veil flows beneath. It can be cropped from your composition, but it will probably be hidden in the dense foliage of the maples above the falls. Bridal Veil Falls makes two leaps. The upper drop looks like one-hundred feet. The lower section drops at least sixty feet. Wahkeena Falls Wahkeena Falls Wahkeena Falls drops over the rim of the cliffs and falls over a hundred feet into a small pool before cascading down a steep and rocky slope for several hundred more feet where it pours under a highway bridge. From the old highway, you ll see the cascade splashing down the hill. If you look way up the canyon, you ll see Wahkeena Falls. Photographers, looking for the small details and patterns of water dropping from pool to pool and splashing its way down a mountainside, love this waterfall. Start with your tripod set up on the small footbridge over the bottom of the stream. A 28mm lens will just frame the whole scene. Move off the bridge, down on the right side of the stream, and play with the compositions you ll find. Try telephotos and wide-angle lenses on the arrangement of black stones and the leaping white water pouring over the rocks toward you. Lower your tripod down to the level of the water and shoot upward with a wide-angle lens. Experiment with long exposures to create a dreamy effect. Try short exposures to freeze the highlights of the spray and the mist rising off the churning water. When you are ready for a different angle, climb the trail up to the base of the waterfall. It s a fairly steep trail. There are several more falls that can be reached if you continue up this trail, but they are not as impressive as Wahkeena. Multnomah Falls Multnomah Falls is the most spectacular of all you see along this drive. It drops 542 feet in one single plunge, flows several hundred feet down the canyon, and then drops another seventy feet. Directly over the lower drop is an old-style cantilever footbridge reached via the trail that starts behind the visitor center. It can be frustrating to try to photograph Multnomah Falls without anyone standing on that bridge. On busy summer weekends, the parking lots below are jammed with tour buses and this trail is solidly lined with visitors. Include the people in your photograph and accept them as part of the scene, or return midweek on a rainy winter day when you will have the whole place all to yourself. This waterfall, the second highest year-round waterfall in the United States, is one of the most visited spots in Oregon. From late November through early March, all the maples, the deciduous trees in the forests along the Gorge, are bare. A few winter storms may bring snow to the area, but too rarely to allow photographers to schedule a winter trip that includes fresh snow. Late March brings the color of fresh green foliage. Thimbleberry and maples fill the canyons with foliage from April through late summer. Autumn colors usually arrive along the Columbia Gorge by October.

5 issue 29 - page 5 Follow the paved footpath leading down to the pool at the base of Multnomah Falls. You need a wide-angle lens a 17mm will frame the whole drop, from top to bottom in a vertical format. After shooting from the bottom of the falls, climb up to the bridge for a different angle. If you have the time and are feeling ambitious, continue up the steep trail for one mile and you ll reach a viewpoint near the top of Multnomah Falls. Just above the viewpoint is Little Multnomah Falls about a ten-foot drop. The trail from the lodge to the top of Multnomah Falls connects with the Larch Mountain Trail and leads to a network of interconnected hiking trails that will take you up to waterfalls that most visitors never see. Most of the trails leading up from the lower levels of the Gorge climb steeply enough to Multnomah Falls A super-wide angle lens will create too much distortion and will emphasize the foreground and make your waterfall seem too far away. Try shooting it in sections with a normal lens and piece the images together later. frighten off the non-hikers. When they crest the rim of the Gorge, most trails level off and take on a more moderate incline as they take you farther into the Columbia Wilderness. Oneonta Falls Two miles east of Multnomah Falls is Oneonta Falls. Watch for the old bridge, bypassed by the road. You won t see a waterfall from the road or from the bridge. You see a narrow slot of a canyon leading up toward the mountains. Stairs lead down from the bridge. A trail leads back along the stream. During the months of high water, you can follow the trail only a few hundred feet upstream to where the moss-covered canyon walls squeeze in and the stream fills the whole width of the narrow passage. A cold breeze blows down the canyon from Lower Oneonta Falls. The stream is melted snow from Mount Hood, and much too cold and too deep to wade unless you arrive in late summer. With old sneakers and a walking stick, you can pick your way up the shallow stream to a view of the lower falls. The upper drop of Oneonta Falls Oneonta Falls can be reached via a steep one-mile trail that starts a quarter-mile west, back down the old highway. The Columbia Gorge Trail Guide, available at the Multnomah Falls Gift Shop, points out where to find the trail heads and lists the trail numbers. All the trails in this area are well-marked at most intersections with small wooden signs pointing out directions and the names and numbers of the trails.

6 issue 29 - page 6 Troutdale Elowah Falls 10 miles to Portland A good topo map of the area will help you determine the elevation gain or loss along your trail and will help you decide whether or not you want to attempt the climb. With a load of camera gear, you may decide to limit your climbs to a few hundred feet and only a short distance from your car. Elowah Falls One of the most beautiful falls drops 289 feet down McCord Creek. It s not far from the eastern end of the old Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway, just before it rejoins Interstate 84. Park along the edge of the large paved turnaround at John B. Yeon State Park, where you see a sign at the Elowah Falls trailhead. The trail climbs fairly steeply for a half-mile then descends into McCord Creek Canyon. Follow switchbacks down to the stream. Summer foliage may block the long views of Elowah Falls. There s a great view from the bridge across the creek near the base. This waterfall drops in a single leap without touching the wall and crashes loudly into a small pool. The wooden bridge is wet from the spray and is slippery. Horsetail Falls A quarter mile beyond Oneonta Creek, you come to Horsetail Falls. It drops 176 feet into a pool beside the highway so close that you could shoot this one from your car. With nothing to block the winds that blow down the river, spray from Horsetail Falls makes it difficult to shoot. Move to the upwind side and try a 20mm lens on Horsetail. Just east of the falls, beyond the picnic tables, is a trail that leads about a half-mile up the canyon to Ponytail Falls. The best viewpoint is from the edge of the narrow trail before it passes behind the base of the falls. Ponytail leaps from the rim of an undercut wall of basalt and falls over a hundred feet into a pool surrounded by ferns and thimbleberry. Starvation Creek Falls Falls In the winter of 1884, passengers stranded in the Gorge on a snowbound train named this area Starvation Creek. Starvation Creek State Park is not much more than a highway rest stop, about ten miles west of the town of Hood River. There are six waterfalls in this area. The easiest to reach is only a short walk up the trail beyond the rest rooms and picnic area. Starvation Creek Falls drops 186 feet. A large rock blocks the view of the bottom half of the falls. The cascades below the falls are worth exploring for small details and patterns. You will find a much better location to set up your tripod if you return to the parking lot and find the trail heading west at the sign marked Mt. Defiance Trail #413. Washington The Columbia River Crown Point Latourell Falls Shepperd s Dell Falls Bridal Veil Falls Multnomah Falls Wahkeena Falls Oneonta Falls

7 issue 29 - page 7 Allow forty-minutes to make the trek up to Cabin Creek Falls, Hole-inthe-Wall Falls, and Lancaster Falls. The trail starts at the entrance to the parking lot. For the first quarter mile, you walk a well-paved footpath along the edge of the highway. Cabin Creek Falls is only a few hundred yards down the trail. It drops 200 feet down a narrow cleft in the vertical wall of the Gorge. Another large rock at the base blocks any easy photography here. A short scramble up to the top of the large rock (the trail is easy to spot) puts you in the perfect position. Use a wide-angle lens because you will be very close to the cascade. In the early spring, the view is better without leaves on the maples. The spray from all the water dropping only a few feet away makes this shot difficult. A few hundred more yards westward down this trail will take you to Holein-the-Wall Falls. This hundred-foot cascade drops from a man-made, concrete-lined hole in the vertical basaltic cliff. It s not very natural looking, but there is a good view from the middle of a wooden footbridge over Warren Creek. The original Warren Falls was diverted because it sprayed onto the old highway. Stay on the Mt. Defiance Trail don t take the side trail marked Starvation Ridge Trail. Take it slowly up the narrow path. When you level off at about three-hundred feet over the river, you hear the crashing of Lancaster Falls. This cascade drops from several hundred feet above your head, washes over the trail, and cascades down to the river. KEEP NOTES on your progress while you are photographing. It is very easy to forget the names and the locations of all the waterfalls in your slides and negatives. If your memory is like mine, in a few weeks, you ll forget the names and mix up the locations. You will need accurate captions if you are selling stock. Try carrying a notebook or a pocket-sized recorder, or shoot signs the highway signs, plaques, and trail markers that will later remind you where you have been. Lancaster Falls Elowah Falls Horsetail Falls Cascade Locks Eagle Creek Trail Oregon Starvation Creek Hood River To the Dalles

8 issue 29 - page 8 During the rainy season, you can pick your way over several large stones in the stream. By late summer, this waterfall is only a trickle. The trail is narrow and the cliff drops off sharply. You can find several good spots for your tripod. A 28mm lens will frame the best part of Lancaster Falls and include the cascade over the rocks just above the trail. A 20mm lens will frame the whole scene and include a bit of sky in the top of your viewfinder. The entire wall behind this waterfall is solidly covered with a thick blanket of bright green moss. Punchbowl Falls Eagle Creek Falls Traveling east or west along Interstate 84, you have to watch for this exit. At Eagle Creek Park (exit 41), you can exit the highway only if you are traveling east. Westbound drivers must make a U-turn at exit 40 and return. Make a right turn past the fish hatchery and the campground (the first US Forest Service Campground in the United States) and follow the narrow road a mile up Eagle Creek to the parking area and the trailhead at the end of the road. My topo map shows a dozen waterfalls on Eagle Creek and the many small side streams that drop into Eagle Canyon. Wauna Falls is the first cascade you pass, about a mile up the trail. It s on the other side of the canyon, across the stream. Another half-mile up the trail, you reach the spur trail leading down the steep slopes to the stream. Eagle Creek drops over onehundred feet at a spot called Metlako Falls. If you have the energy, make the climb down to the river. Pack a wide-angle lens, at least a 20mm, because the canyon is very narrow down there and the trails are carved into the solid rock of the canyon walls. You have few choices where you can set up a tripod. There are steel cable hand-holds along the most narrow and precipitous sections of the trail. Water drips from the overhanging cliff walls above the trail and mudholes may slow your progress. Other parts of the trail pass through a dense rain forest that feels like the climb to Mount Olympus, up the Hoh River Valley. Two miles up the trail, watch for the small wooden sign on your right pointing out a narrow side trail that descends steeply down the canyon to a viewpoint below Punchbowl Falls. To reach this viewpoint, you may have to wade a short distance up the stream. By late summer, you can walk the dry, rocky edge of the stream bed. Punchbowl will have only half the water and you experience only half the impact of a winter visit. This is an impressive waterfall. The stream pours through a narrow slot in the bottom of a round volcanic amphitheater. It drops less than fifteen feet into a lower, round basin the punchbowl. The walls of the deep canyon are black hexagonal basaltic columns. The sharp textures are covered in many places with bright yellow-green moss. The walls of the basin are undercut, wider at water level, so the cascade shoots out into a pool of dark water.

9 issue 29 - page 9 TAKING AN EXPOSURE READING of a waterfall is never easy. Expose for the falling white water and you will underexpose your film. Take a reading off the dark, wet rocks and your meter will probably over estimate the amount of exposure necessary for the scene. You could average the two readings and split the difference. Or you might decide to use your camera s auto-exposure meter setting and just hope for the best. There are several methods that will insure more accurate exposures of your waterfall photographs. An incident meter will read the intensity of the light falling on your scene. It will not be fooled by the light reflecting off your scene. If you are standing in the wrong place, your incident meter may not be reading the same light falling on your subject. You may be standing in the shadow of the trees, and your subject may be out in the sunlight. I prefer to use a spot meter, hand-held or through-the-lens, and take a selective reading (1-3 ) of the light reflecting off the BRIGHTEST area of the scene. Not one of the pure white reflections or the glare on the water from the sun, but an area that has some detail and a bit of texture an area that you ll want to reproduce as slightly darker than a piece of white paper. If you take a meter reading off that brightest (but not pure white) area of the scene in your viewfinder and then increase the indicated meter reading by two stops, that value will be correctly exposed. If the darkest areas of that same scene fall within a four-stop range, there will be visible details in the shadows of your photograph as well. This is the method I use. If my highlights are overexposed, I reduce my exposure in 1/3-stop increments until the "blinkies" stop. When I m shooting color negative film, I do just the opposite. I take a spot reading of the DARKEST shadow area that I want to be reproduced with a slight amount of visible detail (not pure black) and underexpose by two stops. The old axiom of expose for the shadows and print for the highlights still works. Unfortunately, the lighting range of most forest scenes lit by direct sunlight is usually more than four stops. Add the white spray of a waterfall and wet, black volcanic rocks to your scene and there can be a seven to ten stop difference between your highlights and your shadows. To capture images with a wide exposure range, shoot multiple exposures of your scene with your camera on a tripod and later merge all your exposures into one image containing a realistic range of exposure with details in the brightest highlights to the deepest shadows. This is called HDR photography and can be done with most new DSLR cameras. Nature photographers looking for forest scenes hope for a thin overcast or a cloudy day. An open, luminous light dispersed and diffused by fog is ideal. Along the Columbia Gorge, most of the waterfalls flow northward and so are in the shadow of the mountains, especially during the winter months. Skylight and warming filters will remove the blue cast reflecting from the water and the wet rocks. A polarizing filter will cut the glare of the sky on the foliage of the maples around the falls.

10 issue 29 - page 10 A VERTICAL FORMAT is not always necessary when shooting waterfalls. Try using a shorter focal length (a very wide-angle lens) and framing a waterfall with your camera in a horizontal format. Silver Falls State Park After photographing the waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge, visit Silver Falls State Park, twenty-six miles east of Salem, the Capitol of Oregon. Silver Falls is the largest state park in Oregon. There are ten major falls, all easily accessible on well-maintained foot paths. Six of the waterfalls are over one-hundred-feet high. When you re traveling Oregon s Interstate 5, the fastest route to Silver Falls State Park is via Highway 22 at exit 253. Drive east on #22 and make a turn onto SR Follow the signs through rolling foothills covered with millions of Christmas trees, the local cash crop. The harsh light of a sunny day will spoil your photographs at Silver Falls. The human eye delights in the play of light sparkling on falling water, but a photograph captures very little of what the eye can see. I ve photographed these falls in the rain and in the low light of early morning and late afternoon. The results are always better than I expected. A thin overcast of hazy clouds will soften the light so that washed-out highlights will not be a problem. Dark canyon walls behind falling white water can be photographed more successfully with the diffused light of an overcast sky. In the spring, before all the large maples are in leaf, the viewpoints and openings along the trails are better. The views of the falls are not blocked by trees. The rivers are lined with both evergreens and deciduous maples. Summer means more foliage and more exciting forest scenes. Summer also means more visitors and more hikers and occasionally waiting until everyone moves out of your way. The trails pass directly behind some of the waterfalls, so there may be people walking in and out of your photographs. This can be frustrating. Wait until they pass directly behind the falls and are out of sight before you shoot. The northern falls One of the easiest to reach, and one of the most dramatic views, is of North Falls. There is a high viewpoint along the road through the park where you can make a photograph of the distant waterfall, like the photo above. North Falls drops 136 feet in a single cascade over the rim of the basalt cliffs. North Falls Drive a few hundred yards further to the North Falls trailhead parking area. Cross the footbridge over the North Fork of Silver Creek and turn downstream. It s a ten-minute walk, and only one-third of a mile, to the edge of North Falls. The trail continues behind the falls and leads back into an immense cavern. At the deepest part of the cavern, when you are directly behind the waterfall, the sound is deafening. The chamber concentrates the noise of crashing water until it sounds like you are standing behind a Boeing 747 about to take off. You ll see plenty of photo possibilities here. Try framing the falls with the forest and the cascading stream below. When you emerge from the cavern, beyond the falls, a rough and fairly steep trail descends to the base of the falls. From down there, you can shoot upward with a wide-angle lens for a dramatic view of the falls.

11 issue 29 - page 11 The constant spray swirling up from the water crashing onto the rocks at the base of the falls will quickly soak you and mist over your filter. In these spots, I carry my camera on the tripod with a plastic bag wrapped around the camera. I get everything set up by looking through the clear plastic. The view isn t very clear and it s sometimes hard to focus. I don t remove the bag until the last second before punching the cable release. If you are carrying a load of camera gear and want to shorten your walking time, turn around when you have reached a point just beyond North Falls. It s one mile farther downstream to Twin Falls where the stream is split by several rocks and falls 31 feet. Return to the North Falls parking lot. Follow the trail that passes under the footbridge and continue upstream a short distance. Most visitors never find Upper North Falls, a wide falls that drops 65 feet into a pool. This scene is easy to frame from the edge of the pool at the end of the trail. In the spring, when everything in the park is flowing at its peak, several bridal veil cascades drop into the stream along this trail. Wear a hat for these hikes and carry a plastic bag to protect your camera. These trails cross behind the waterfalls in several locations and the constant spray and water dripping from canyon walls can soak you. A rain coat might be necessary. A clean dry cloth will be useful to clean the spray from the falls off your lenses and camera. North Falls From the North Falls trailhead, you can reach two excellent photo locations. If you follow the trail downstream and photograph the other major falls in this park, it will be a long way back to your car. If you follow the loop trail, starting at North Falls, it will take at least five hours to walk the whole seven miles. I recommend that you drive back downhill to the Winter Falls parking lot and continue your explorations from there. The middle falls It s a steep, half-mile descent from the top of Winter Falls to the bridge that crosses the stream. You may find a few compositions at the base of Winter Falls if there is any water falling when you arrive. Winter rains and snow melt make this a seasonal location. At the bridge, turn left to reach Middle North Falls (106 feet) Drake Falls (27 feet), Double Falls (178 feet), and Lower North Falls (30 feet). Fewer visitors reach this area of the park. There is an excellent tripod location several hundred feet downstream from Middle North Falls. An opening in the trees allows a clear view of these falls. Drakes Falls, a short distance farther downstream, is difficult to photograph well. The only view of this cascade is from directly above. THE NAMES of these waterfalls are not very imaginative. There is NORTH FALLS, and SOUTH FALLS. In between are LOWER SOUTH FALLS, MID- DLE NORTH FALLS, LOWER NORTH FALLS, TWIN FALLS and DOUBLE FALLS. The only exception is DRAKE FALLS, about half-way around the loop trail, one of the least photogenic of all the falls in the park. Surprisingly, this waterfall was named for June Drake, a pioneer photographer, whose photographs of the area helped develop interest in preserving this part of Oregon as a State Park. The base of Double Falls

12 issue 29 - page 12 UNLESS YOU ARE A STRONG HIKER and enjoy walking six or seven miles in one day, break up your walks by starting from three different trailheads North Falls, Winter Falls, and South Falls. Do not miss the view of South Falls, the highlight of the park. Keep walking downstream and watch for the spur trail leading up a side canyon to Double Falls. Hullt Creek makes two leaps from the canyon rim. The upper drop is much shorter than the lower. The most interesting part of this waterfall is the display of patterns as the stream crashes onto the rocky canyon wall just above the base of the falls. Both times I photographed Double Falls, I used a 300mm lens to frame what I hoped would become patterns of the spray. I used long exposures to build up an image. A telephoto lens can be useful to tightly frame the most interesting details of these cascades. Patterns of splashing water striking black rock can create very strong images. Consider black-and-white as well as color for these waterfalls. Back on the trail, continue downstream as far as Lower North Falls, before returning to the trailhead and your car at the top of Winter Falls. It s a strenuous two-hour hike (or a leisurely three-hour hike) to complete the whole lower loop trail. Next drive to the parking lot at South Falls. You may want to have your traveling companion drive to the South Falls Parking area. The trail between Winter Falls and South Falls passes through a very scenic old-growth rain forest. The trees are covered with hanging moss and the dense forest floor is covered with ferns. Don t bother making this walk on a sunny day. In the filtered light of an overcast day in spring, this forest is a wonderful study in shades of green. The southern falls There are acres of parking lots at South Falls. Park as close as possible to the trailhead and follow the signs to the falls. Allow at least two hours to walk the trail to South Falls (177 feet) and Lower South Falls (93 feet). The trail leads you to the top of South Falls, but the best views are from below. Take the trail that descends half-way down South Falls and then passes behind the waterfall and continues down the other side of the canyon. From the bottom of the canyon, continue down stream to Lower South Falls, or cross the stream to an excellent viewpoint in the middle of a bridge that crosses the stream just below South Falls. Move closer and shoot from the edge of the large pool at the base of the falls. These basalt walls are always wet with spray but are solid rock so moss and ferns have not taken over these canyons. South Falls

13 issue 29 - page 13 To find Lower South Falls, continue downstream almost a mile. There are plenty of good viewpoints along the trails through this park. I ve never found it necessary to climb out on the rim of the falls or bushwhack through the forest to find a better spot for my tripod. After a rain, mudholes can mess up the trails. On a cold day, especially after a snow, watch for slippery ice on the trails. There are cabins and a campground at Silver Falls State Park. There are many choices of lodgings and restaurants in the Salem area. Portland is not far from Silver Falls. Add Silver Falls to your trip s itinerary when you are returning from a week-long photography tour down the Oregon Coast. It s just a couple of hours south of Portland. The time and effort will be well spent and you will surely add some fine images to your collection of waterfall photographs. Clearwater Falls SHOOTING UPWARD from the base of the waterfalls can create severe distortion unless the falls are placed dead-center in the middle of your compositions. I try to place a waterfall so that it flows toward the center of the composition and does not lead out of the frame. Waterfalls placed on the edge of a composition can lean inward at a gravity-defying angle when a camera is pointed upward. View camera owners can avoid this distortion by keeping their camera s back and the film vertical. Raising only the lens standard, the rising front, will give the same effect as tilting a camera upward but will keep vertical parallel lines free of distortion. Have a great trip and send me a postcard!

14 Internet Resources U. S. NATIONAL PARKS / STATE PARKS Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area: Silver Falls State Park: parkpage&parkid=151 LODGING Columbia Gorge Hotel and Spa, Hood River, OR Hood River Hotel, Hood River, OR Hampton Inn and Suites, Hood River, OR Best Western Plus Hood River Inn, Hood River, OR CAR RENTALS WEATHER CONDITIONS The Weather Channel: The National Weather Service: SPECIALTY CLOTHING CAMERA EQUIPMENT My life-long career in photography began at San Jose State University in After college, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, serving as a photographer and darkroom technician. In Germany, my skills and experience with equipment and lab work were developed and polished. I took the opportunity to photograph the beauty of nature in the Black Forest. Returning to California in 1965, I produced industrial and military training films for Raytheon Electronics and began showing my color nature prints. From 1969 through 1981, my photography was exhibited and sold in West Coast galleries. During the early 1980 s, I taught color darkroom workshops, then expanded to include field trips. Former customers, who had purchased my framed photographs, wanted to learn photography. My Pacific Image Photography Workshops offered adventures to the Pacific Coast, the Southwest deserts, national parks, Hawaii, New England, Canada, England, and the South Pacific. The workshops evolved into writing and sharing my adventures with others. Photograph America Newsletter provides information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in North America. Photograph America Newsletter is published quarterly (four issues/year) by Robert Hitchman assisted by technical associate/wife, Katherine Post Office Box 86, Novato, CA All contents of this newsletter copyright Robert Hitchman Please don t make copies for your friends. This is a violation of Federal copyright laws. This newsletter survives on subscriptions.