Finger Lakes of New York. Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America

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1 October Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America Published since 1989 Finger Lakes of New York The Finger Lakes region is filled with a dozen long, deep, and narrow lakes and is one of the more beautiful parts of western New York State. The last of the Ice Age glaciers retreated from this part of North America ten thousand years ago, leaving deep U-shaped valleys carved into an underlying ancient seabed composed of soft shale and sandstone. These northsouth canyons are now filled with the Finger Lakes from Lake Ontario south to the Pennsylvania state line and from the Genesee River east to Syracuse. Photographers looking for fall foliage will want to know about the hundreds of waterfalls in the Finger Lakes region. Streams flowing into the lakes cascade from layer to layer, eroding stone down rolling hills covered with hardwood forests of maple, beech, ash, and birch.

2 Issue page 2 A utumn s foliage season in this part of the Northeast is typically from October 5 through October 20. A large loop of the Finger Lakes region will take a week to ten days and should include roadtrips completely around at least one of the lakes. Fly in and out of Rochester, New York. Rent a car, stay overnight at one of the nearby motels, and you ll be ready to hit the road the next day. If you arrive too early and autumn color hasn t started to appear yet, concentrate on the waterfalls, old barns, and rural landscapes to the southeast of Rochester. If you arrive at the peak of autumn color, start your explorations in Letchworth State Park, thirty miles south of Rochester and then head east. Stay off the Interstate Highways and travel east and west on State Route 20, connecting all the small towns located at the north ends of most of the Finger Lakes. Drive the shoreline roads down one side and up the other side of all the lakes or concentrate on the back roads. That s where you ll discover miles of cornfields, dairy farms and great red barns. I left the Rochester NY Airport in a rented car and headed south on Route 15A, down the east side of Hemlock Lake where I found a dozen beautiful streams flowing into the Springwater Valley and into the lake. Autumn color was beginning to appear here in early October. It s very easy to get lost in these hills. You ll need a map with more information and better detail than most road maps. For this trip, I recommend that you purchase a New York State Atlas by DeLormé. To find the locations of the Finger Lakes waterfalls in this newsletter, look up the name of the nearest town in the index on page 2 of your DeLormé Atlas. Read my directions to the falls you want to photograph and circle the area on your map. If you have a GPS navigational device in your car or in your rental vehicle, you may prefer to use that. Many of the streams that flow into the Finger Lakes drop as much as a hundred feet a mile. When those streams start in the higher surrounding mountains, they can erode deep canyons below hanging valleys. Find the higher elevations on your DeLormé maps and you can find the streams heading for the lakes. Those streams may not all have large waterfalls, but you will find some very photogenic cascades dropping through the forests. Some are on private property. The biggest and best waterfalls have been protected as State Parks and are accessible by the public. Find the little downhill skier icons on your map and you will find the higher elevations where the weather is cooler and where autumn colors start to make their first appearance. I stayed three nights in Watkins Glen at the south end of Seneca Lake, and then moved to Ithaca at the south end of Cayuga Lake for three nights. From there, I went north and stayed for two nights in Geneva at the north end of Seneca Lake and two nights in the town of Mount Morris near Letchworth State Park. All these towns have a good selection of motels and restaurants. I drove a lot of miles looking for the best displays of autumn color. Each day it got better. Seneca Lake The town of Watkins Glen is at the south end of Seneca Lake. I drove the length of Seneca Lake at least four times, on each side. There are many vineyards along both shorelines. Like California s wine country, these vines reach their peak of autumn

3 Issue page 3 color in late October. Many tasting rooms were busy pouring samples of their local wines. Pumpkins to photograph were at roadside fruit stands. Just south of Watkins Glen, there are several easily-accessed waterfalls in the smaller town of Montour Falls. Shequaga Falls (spelled Chequaga on some maps) is located on the west side of the town on Genesee Street, just south of Main Street. It sits back a hundred feet from the street. Park and walk to the edge of the pool at the base of the falls. The falls drop over 150 feet. You ll need a fairly short wide-angle lens in the 24mm range. Shoot over the top of a low chain-link fence. Your viewpoints will be limited by private property surrounding the falls. The side streets of Montour Falls are lined with maples. This town dates back to the late 18oos. Montour Falls was called Havana until 1900, when the Spanish- American War made anything connected with Cuba unpopular. By late summer, the flow of water over these falls becomes a trickle. Several days of rain in the autumn season can fill the streams again. Signs marking the locations of these big waterfalls bring the tourists year round. Two other waterfalls in this village are more difficult to find but make better photographs. Heading north or south through the village of Montour Falls on Highway 14, watch for the side road going east, marked Havana Glen Road. Drive east a hundred yards and turn right into the Havana Glen Park and Campgrounds. Pay the entry fee, drive straight ahead to the far side of the park, and stop at the trailhead parking area. From the parking lot, it s a short walk to several flights of metal grate stairs that climb up to a trail along McClure Creek as it pours through a narrow, twisting canyon. A handrail helps hikers on the slippery path. At the end of the railing, Eagle Cliff Falls drops 41 feet from a notch in a hanging valley into a large, shallow pool. From the pool, the stream makes a bend toward the south and cascades down through the canyon. At the bottom of the last cascade, McClure Creek is down at the parking lot level. Havana Glen has a quiet little campground where photographers can overnight near this beautiful waterfall. Eagle Cliff Falls (below) is best photographed in the morning on an overcast day. A light drizzle will wet down and darken all the stones along the stream, reducing your contrast problems. Eagle Cliff Falls in Havana Glen Park When you leave the Havana Glen Park, turn right and continue up the hill to the first left turn onto L Hommedieu Street. Drive north a half mile and turn right onto Catlin Street. Park your car in the small turnaround space at the end of the road. The best tripod spot for the Deckertown Falls is raised above Catlin Mill Creek. Less than a hundred feet up the trail, bear left on the trail that leads to the edge of the stream below the falls. You ll want

4 Issue page 4 Taughannock Falls a lens in the mm range for this vertical composition framing trees above the falls in the distance all the way down to cascades dropping over rocks in the stream below your feet. Hector Creek Falls On an overcast morning, an aperture of f-22, for the depth-of-field I needed, required an exposure time of 1/4 second. To create the effect I wanted on the flowing water, I added a four-stop neutral density filter (a 72mm Tiffen 1.2 ND). It made the image in the viewfinder too dark to see but, after making a few test exposures, I got the composition and the exposure I wanted. A Hoodman Loupe helped, too. To find the next waterfall marked on my map, I headed north through Watkins Glen along the east side of Seneca Lake on Route 414 and watched for the bridge over Hector Falls Creek. Park on the lakeside of the highway and walk across the twolane road to set up your tripod at the base of the upper falls. Just below the bridge, the creek drops three more times as it falls 165 feet through private property into Lake Seneca. The best view frames only the upper part of the falls. Hector Falls Creek drops from the Finger Lakes National Forest, four miles northeast of Hector Falls, just north of Route 79. Taughannock Falls From Seneca Lake, I drove east to Ithaca, New York, at the southern end of Cayuga Lake. Eight miles north of Ithaca, on the west side of Cayuga Lake, is Taughannock Falls State Park. This waterfall drops 215 feet from a hanging valley into a pool in the bottom of a circular canyon. This waterfall once fell directly into Cayuga Lake. Thousands of years of erosion has moved it back three-quarters of a mile from the shoreline. Park in the lot along Route 89, pay the State Park entry fee, and walk the streamside trail three-quarters of a mile to the base of Taughannock Falls. In early October, tall maples line the trail and make this a wonderful photo walk. My favorite tripod spot was on the footbridge directly over the stream below the falls with a 10-20mm wide-angle lens. Because of late afternoon backlighting, I waited until a thick, dark cloud covered the sun before making my first exposure. There are several small cascades worth photographing along the trail. In the spring, the hundred-foot-wide streambed is flowing edge to edge. By autumn, it s tenfeet wide in the deeper spots. If this is too much walking for you on a rainy day, a similar view, from a higher angle, can be seen from the rim of the canyon on the edge of a large parking lot about halfway up Park Road. From the higher angle, you can frame the falls with red and yellow foliage. Directions to this location are on the small map handed out at the gate. Ithaca Falls Down at the south end of Cayuga Lake, traffic crawls through the college town of Ithaca on sunny weekends. Allow for this if you plan to drive down one side of Cayuga Lake and back up the other side. I stayed several nights in Ithaca and had time to

5 Issue page 5 explore the old part of town and hike to some of the many waterfalls in the area. One of the easiest waterfalls to find is Ithaca Falls. Heading north or south through the center of town on Route 13, turn east onto Dey Street. Then make a quick left onto Lincoln. Six blocks east, Lincoln ends at Lake Street. Across Lake Street is a two-level dirt parking lot, next to Fall Creek. A trail cuts through the trees or you can walk north a few feet on Lake Street to find the official trailhead. It s an easy five-minute walk to the falls. There are several places to set up a tripod along the stream for a more interesting foreground. By walking to the end of the trail, I was able to get to within a few feet of the base of Ithaca Falls. This close, my 10-20mm zoom lens was perfect. This waterfall faces west. No direct sunlight strikes it in the early morning. This waterfall drops 150 feet. It is 175 feet wide and a lot of water was pouring over the rim so late in the season. A half mile upstream to the east is Beebe Lake, the source of all the water. Four smaller waterfalls are upstream from Ithaca Falls. Drive south on Lake Street for two blocks and turn left onto Stewart Street to find the trailhead parking lot. The Cayuga Trail starts at the southeast corner of the Stewart Street Bridge and winds along the south side of Fall Creek for one mile. The first waterfall is a multi-drop cascade called Forest Falls. Stone steps lead down to the base of several of the waterfalls. The last waterfall, called Triphammer, sits below Beebe Lake on the edge of the Cornell University Campus. If you don t have two hours for this hike, drive east on Lake Street (which changes names several times) and turn right onto Judd Falls Road. Judd Falls sits just south of Route 366. This cascade drops twelve feet on its way to Cayuga Lake. Set up your tripod on the edge of the stream at the base. Buttermilk Falls State Park is one mile south of Ithaca on Route 13. As soon as you drive into the parking lot, you can see the hundred-and-eighty foot Buttermilk cascade. All the water that cascades down this slope flows from Treman Lake, up in the hills, one mile south. Twenty-nine miles south of Ithaca, the backside of the town of Owego, just west of Binghamton, hangs out over the Susquehanna River. Early morning sunlight reflects in every rear window along the length of the main street of town and lights up all the laundry hanging from fire escapes. Ludlowville Falls Eighteen miles north of Ithaca, on the east side of Cayuga Lake, and a half-mile east of Route 34B, is the crossroads village of Ludlowville, established in The site of the old Ludlowville Inn (destroyed by fire in 1795) is now a small park next to Salmon Creek. Park in their lot and walk across the lawn to the fence above the edge of Salmon Creek. These falls drop thirty-six feet, over the jagged edge of a twelve-foot thick caprock. Erosion has carved a deep cavern beneath the capstone and behind the waterfall. A 24mm lens will cover a horizontal composition filled with all the cascades dropping from the edge of the caprock. Shoot a few images both with and without Ludlowville Falls

6 Issue page 6 a neutral density filter. My exposures were two seconds at f-22 with a 1.2 (four stop) ND filter. With a little searching, I found a trail at the south end of the fence that descended to the base of the falls. The lower part of the trail was steep and slippery with mud. The lower camera angle, from the bottom of Ludlowville Falls, would make a better photograph in the spring when wildflowers would fill the bottom of your composition. I climbed back up the trail and made a few more exposures of the patterns along the rim of the waterfall with a 300mm telephoto. From the parking lot, walk around the covered picnic pavilion, up the trail past the dammed up swimming hole, turn left, and cross the stone arch bridge. Beyond the bridge, walk a quarter-mile up a narrow wooded canyon to a beautiful thirty-foot waterfall that makes three leaps to splash onto large flat stones below. The cascades twist and pour over several ledges to follow the trail as the stream flows through the valley below on its way to Owasco Lake. My favorite vertical photograph of this cascade was made with a 24mm lens and a four-stop ND filter. To the left of the falls is a deep alcove carved out of soft, sedimentary rock by falling water and covered with a thick, flat capstone cantilevered out to create a shelter. It is said that cows from nearby farms used to escape the summer heat in the cool, damp shade below the falls. This beautiful waterfall is called Cow Shed. Cow Shed Falls in Fillmore Glen State Park Fillmore Glen State Park I left Ludlowville heading northeast toward Route 38 into Moravia, NY, near the south end of Owasco Lake. There s a beautiful waterfall in Fillmore Glen State Park, located just south of the town of Moravia. New Hope Mills Falls New Hope Mills Falls Ten miles northeast of Moravia, NY, on Route 38A is the tiny crossroads village of New Hope, NY, on the southwest side of Skaneateles Lake. All of these small villages are listed in the index of the New York State DeLormé Atlas. Head east off Route 38A onto Burdock Road and drive two miles through the only intersection in the village of New Hope. A hundred feet beyond the intersection, turn north onto a gravel driveway marked New Hope Mill along Bear Swamp Creek.

7 Issue page 7 The creek backs up in a small pond before dropping twenty-five feet into a narrow chasm past a large red building housing a gristmill with a twenty-six-foot waterwheel. The creek no longer turns the wheel but the mill still produces organic flours, buckwheat pancake mixes, and grains for sale in the small store next to the waterfall. Old, well-worn millstones lean against the front of the store. Park your car a few yards back up the gravel drive, away from the mill, or it might appear in your photographs. Gather up your tripod and camera gear and walk over the short covered bridge. The best viewpoints are on the other side of the stream, directly across from the waterwheel. I tried to frame my composition with yellow trees. If you don t have a super-wide-angle lens, make several exposures to stitch together later into a panoramic format. From the village of New Hope, I headed south on Route 41A to the town of Cortland, NY and then headed east on Route 13 for nine miles to Truxton, NY, where I drove north onto Route 91. Tinker s Falls Seven miles north of Truxton are two parking areas, one on either side of Route 91, with a painted crosswalk connecting them. This trailhead is hard to miss. The trail to Tinker s Falls is a quarter-mile long and follows the Creel Tributary flowing into Labrador Creek. Yellow and red leaves, fallen from the forest above, littered the edges of the stream. My favorite spot along the trail was directly across from the first of three wooden benches for hikers using the trail. Because of the low light levels in the forest, I used exposures in the six-second range and did not need an ND filter. I spread out my 24 x 48 rubberized canvas ground cloth and was able to lie down on the edge of the stream with the tripod s legs extended straight out. By lowering my tripod to ground level and using a 10-20mm wide-angle with a vertical format, I covered a view of 180 degrees. By switching to a horizontal format, I was able to avoid any sky showing through the woods at the top of my viewfinder. At the end of the trail, fallen logs and brush had grown up at the base of this eighty-foot waterfall. I moved back and framed the full height of the falls with a mm telephoto in both vertical and horizontal formats and both at 70mm and at 300mm. Autumn color on the trees around the falls gave me the effect I wanted. I made a series of long exposures and deleted those images spoiled by wind moving the foliage. There is a trail visible on the other side of the stream that climbs up to the base of Tinker s Falls Cascades below Tinker s Falls

8 Issue page 8 Tinker s Falls and passes behind the falls dropping over the edge of a protruding caprock. As I was walking back down the trail from Tinker s Falls, I passed a wedding photographer posing a bride in her wedding dress and her groom in his tuxedo. The three of them were standing in front of the cascade I had photographed several hours earlier. This was my favorite stream walk so far. Along the trail on the edge of Labrador Pond Two miles north of the Tinker s Falls trailhead is a sign pointing the way to Labrador Pond where a raised onemile wooden boardwalk winds through a stunted forest and passes the edge of Labrador Pond, a natural glacial pond tucked in a valley between steep wooded hills. I had this trail all to myself. The water is clear and lily pads cover small coves on the shoreline, ringed with autumn color in early October. Yellow bracken and small red maples framed pools in the stream flowing into the pond. Brief rain showers were interspersed with sunlight through broken clouds. Using all my lenses, I tried to capture what I saw. Both Tinker s Falls and Labrador Pond are located in the Labrador Hollow State Nature Preserve. If you are heading south from Syracuse, NY, to photograph Tinker s Falls or the Labrador Pond area, take Interstate 81 and exit at Tully Center. Drive seven miles east on Route 80 and then turn south onto Route 91. The Tinker s Falls trailhead is two miles south of the Labrador Pond entrance. Two miles north of Labrador Pond, I followed State Route 80 eastward for six miles and then turned south onto Vincent Road. Two miles south, I veered east onto Cowles Settlement Road, drove into the hills and came upon the best autumn color I d seen so far. On October 7th, the color was peaking in these hills south of Syracuse, NY. I stopped at several bridges to shoot upstream, finding cascades dropping through yellow and red forests. No Trespassing signs were posted along the roads. All the best color was along the edge of the pavement. Ten miles north, I turned right onto Route 80 and headed east toward Smyrna, NY, to find another waterfall. Upperville Falls The village of Upperville looks deserted, abandoned and grown over with weeds. I turned right onto Quaker Hill Road and saw the waterfall I was looking for a hundred feet from the bridge. Pleasant Brook drops eight feet over Upperville Falls. From the middle of the bridge, a 24mm lens framed the width of the falls perfectly and captured some autumn color in the woods above the stream. A check of my histograms told me that my exposures were as good as I could expect in the rain. From the middle of the bridge, it was a short walk to the main street of Upperville where I shot some abstract images of architectural decay. Rexford Falls Ten miles farther east, on Route 80, I passed through the village of Rexford. A side road was marked Rexford Falls Road. I took a right and followed the road to a large parking area in a grove of trees along a stream called Mad Brook on my map. An old and rusty pedestrian bridge crossed the deep canyon above the falls that dropped eighty feet in a long, steep cascade.

9 Issue page 9 There were no trails to the base of this cascade. I had to shoot details of water and yellow foliage from both sides of the canyon with a telephoto. Covering the forest floor was a carpet of green moss thriving in the constant mists rising from the cascade. From Rexford, I headed north on Route 12B through Hamilton, NY, the home of Colgate University. After stopping for lunch in a small cafe in the beautifully-restored center of this historic town, I continued north along back roads to the small town of Cazenovia. Three miles farther north on Route 13 is Chittenango Falls State Park. Here the Chittenango Creek takes a hundred-andseventy foot leap from the edge of the Allegany Plateau, on its way to Oneida Lake, north of Syracuse. From the bottom of the long flight of slippery stone stairs, Chittenango was a difficult waterfall to photograph in the rain with my camera pointing straight up. I realized that better photographs could be found along the creek, upstream above the falls. The easiest access is a halfmile upstream, along the road back to Cazenovia, where a large parking area for anglers sits on a bend on the creek. The twenty-foot wide stream was lined with autumn color. A drizzle beneath low clouds muted the light and made long exposures of splashing cascades more interesting with possibilities for blackand-white images. Skaneateles Lake Back in Cazenovia, I headed west on Route 20 to a small park in the town of Skaneateles on the edge of Skaneateles Lake. The town offers interesting galleries and good restaurants. Late in the afternoon, clouds filled the sky above the lake. Sidewalks along the main street are decorated with planter boxes and flowers. I stayed two nights in Geneva at the north end of Seneca Lake. From Geneva, I headed south on Route 14 through the small town of Penn Yan at the north end of Keuka Lake and then drove south along the east side of the lake. At boat launching ramps along the shoreline, there are good viewpoints of the long row of lakefront cottages on the far side of Keuka Lake. Steep slopes above the lake were covered with autumn color. The north end of Skaneateles Lake Hammondsport, NY, sits at the south end of Keuka Lake. South of town is the Glenn H. Curtiss Aviation Museum. Don t miss this place if you enjoy antique and historic The south end of Keuka Lake aircraft, old speedboats, motorcycles photography is permitted. Keuka Lake was the site of many early aviation firsts. This large museum is filled with original planes and reproductions built in a backroom workshop that is open to the public.

10 Issue page 10 A half-mile north of the museum, Winding Stair Road climbs into the hills to the south. Like many hilltops in the Finger Lakes region, this one was at the peak of fall color the day I arrived. Upper Falls It s a ten-mile drive to the south end of the park where all the best waterfalls are found. Spanning the canyon above Upper Falls is an old railroad bridge, still used by the Norfolk and Southern Railroad. In 1852, when it was built, it was the longest and highest railroad bridge in the world. During a wet spring, the Genesee River is three hundred feet wide as it drops seventy-feet over Upper Falls. In October, it was half that width. The trail from the parking lot to the top of the falls is a tenminute walk. My favorite viewpoint was halfway up the Gorge Trail, with the bridge in the composition. In the hills south of Keuka Lake Red barns surrounded by red maples were all along the roads I drove on my way south to Route 16 and into a larger small town named Bath. From there, I headed north to Honeoye Lake and the beautiful little village called Honeoye. I checked my map and found Honeoye Falls a few miles north. Honeoye Falls The falls are two-foot drops over flat ledges, spaced out along the creek bed. Several are visible along Route 64 one mile south of the town of Honeoye Falls. The best views are from bridges on Martin Road and on Ideson Road. I set up my tripod and used a 200mm telephoto from both bridges, looking upstream. An overcast sky reduced glare on the wet stones below the bridges. Letchworth State Park It was getting dark when I finished up. I headed southwest toward the town of Mount Morris, thirty-five miles south of Rochester, NY. I found a motel near the northern entrance into Letchworth State Park to stay several days exploring the park and photographing more waterfalls. Like many New York State Parks, a fee is charged at the entrance into Letchworth. Upper Falls in Letchworth State Park Above the crest of the falls, the trail continues to climb. As it crosses a small footbridge, look to the right to find a fifteen-foot waterfall called the Shadow Cascade. My favorite angle for this spot was from the right side of the trail, with a short climb down to the edge of the stream. With my 10mm lens positioned down near the water, I shot upward to include the full height of the falls. With a vertical format, I could include fallen red leaves on the wet stones below me in the stream.

11 Issue page 11 Misty waterfalls and drops of rain are a big problem with short focal-length lenses on APS-size digital cameras. A single water droplet on a lens will leave a noticeable spot on your image. For this waterfall trip, I was packing a zip-up bag filled with 8 x 8 pieces of a clean, cut-up chamois. Middle Falls Back at the parking lot, I left my car where it was and walked five minutes in the other direction to find Middle Falls (above). It drops over a hundred feet and is three hundred feet wide. It cascades down a steep slope, generating a lot of mist. Keep your lens cap on until you are ready to shoot. Walk farther away from the falls, down the paved trail, to get a better angle and avoid cropping off the edges of Middle Falls. This trail climbs up to cross the road and then climbs to the front of the Glen Iris Inn, a lodge and restaurant sitting above the most beautiful waterfall in the park. At trailhead marker #19, there s a wide spot next to a bridge over the outlet stream from Silver Lake. A gate blocks vehicles from the Gibsonville Trail. A hundred feet down the wide trail, in the middle of a bend to the left, is an unmarked side trail leading down into the woods, an easy short walk to the edge of the stream. Not visible from the road is a thirty-foot waterfall joining the stream flowing from Silver Lake. Light levels were dropping as I enjoyed another hour of waterfall photography using long and short exposures, vertical and horizontal compositions with three different lenses from 10 to 300 mm. This spot at Trail Marker #19 is four miles south of the entry gate at the Mount Morris Entrance into the park. All the hardwoods in the forest were at the peak of their autumn color during the second week of October. An all-day drizzly rain created my favorite lighting conditions and filled small streams and gullies pouring down the canyon walls. Late in the day, as I was driving north to leave the park, I slowed to check for water every time I drove over a bridge. At the Tea Table parking area, the Wolf Creek Cascades make a nice photograph, especially the upstream section on the west side of the bridge. Since I had plenty of time before catching an afternoon flight out of Rochester, I drove a large circle along rural back roads through the hills west of Letchworth State Park. I drove muddy farm roads and followed streams on my map. Scattered clouds were backdrops for red barns and silos on distant ridgelines. It was a great ending for a wonderful trip. My favorite waterfalls: Havana Glen Falls Taughannock Falls Cow Shed Falls Tinker s Falls Have a great trip! Taken with a 10mm lens

12 Internet Resources STATE PARKS LODGING Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, Ithaca, NY Best Western Plus Vineyard Inn, Penn Yan, NY Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel, Watkins Glen, NY CAR RENTALS FALL COLOR HOTLINES WEATHER CONDITIONS The Weather Channel: The National Weather Service: 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 Below the Glen Iris Inn - Letchworth State Park Please don t make copies for your friends. This is a violation of Federal copyright laws. This newsletter survives on subscriptions.