The Cascadilla Gorge Trail in Ithaca, New York: Autumn Landscape Photographs and Tips for Capturing Moving Water

"Nature is a source of truth. Experience does not ever err, it 

is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results 

which are not caused by your experiments." 

-Leonardo Da Vinci 

Early this past Saturday morning I spent two hours photographing the Cascadilla Gorge Trail, in Ithaca, New York. The combination of cascading water and autumn color was truly beautiful. As it had snowed the night before, and a cold drizzle fell as I drove to the gorge, I was lucky that the clouds began to clear as I arrived.  While I walked and photographed in the gorge, there was a stretch of nice, filtered light (although it remained quite cold - in the mid-30s) before another stretch of snow later that morning.  I started at the Treman Triangle Park entrance to the gorge (off of Linn Street), and worked my way up the trail.  Below are nine of my new images of the Cascadilla Gorge, followed by several tips to improve your photographs of waterfalls and cascading water.

1) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

2) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

3) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

4) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

5) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

6) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

7) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

8) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

9) Cascadilla Gorge in Autumn, Ithaca, New York.

Tips to Improve Your Photographs of Moving Water

In my images above, I tried to give the flowing water a soft, white, silky appearance (rather than trying to "freeze" the movement).  To create beautiful photographs of the cascading water in Cascadilla Creek, or any waterfall, here are a few tips.

1) Use a Tripod.  As you will need to use slow shutter speeds, its important to avoid camera movement. You want the land, rock and trees to appear crisp and sharp, in contrast the moving water. Whenever I use a tripod, I also use and external shutter release.  This avoids pushing (and possibly moving) the camera.

2) As with any photograph you need to find the correct balance between ISO, shutter speed and aperture.  The key to achieving the silky appearance in moving water is finding the right shutter speed.  For each of the images above, I used the following settings: 

     a) a low ISO (100 or 200).

     b) a slow shutter speed (between three-tenths of a second and

     half a second).

     c) a small aperture (for these images, my aperture ranged 

     between f/14 and f/29).  This allowed a wide depth of field, 

     so both the foreground and background are sharp.

3) Experiment.  Different situations require slightly different settings, so you will need to experiment and make minor adjustments.  After each shot, I checked the image on the LCD to see if the water appeared silky, to see if there was some detail in the water, and to make sure the highlights were not blown (overexposed and all white, with no detail).

4) Vary your composition and emphasis. For some images, I tried to give the viewer a broad perspective of the setting, usually with a wide angle lens.  These images have foreground and background elements (e.g. images 2, 4, 6 and 9).  For other images, I tried to isolate a small section (e.g. images 3, 7, and 8).  Additionally, I tried to incorporate other compositional guidelines (leading lines, rule of thirds, filling the frame, diagonals, etc.).

5) Be Patient.  While I was in Cascadilla Gorge, there were fairly frequent gusts of wind.  If I was shooting a scene with trees, the wind meant that the leaves and branches were moving.  As I was using a slow shutter speed, the leaves and branches would appear blurry in my photograph, and diminish the overall image.  I often had to wait a few moments for the wind to die down.  It generally pays to be patient, take a few shots, and keep checking your LCD.  Similarly, for my landscapes, I usually do not want people in the images.  If folks happen to walk into an area while I am shooting, it pays to wait until they pass out of the frame.

6) You generally want soft, filtered light, so its best to shoot in the early morning or late afternoon.  The early morning has the added benefit of having fewer people along the trail.

I hope these simple tips help to inspire your creativity.

An Unofficial Guide to Photographing Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas (Part 2): Improving Your Tropical Vacation Photographs

A few days ago, our home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania was covered in about two feet of snow, so I will think back to last month when our family was relishing another vacation in the Bahamas.  Two years ago I posted a lengthy blog article: An Unofficial Guide to Photographing Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas: Improving Your Tropical Vacation Photographs. Since then, my family has had a two more relaxing and fun-filled trips to Atlantis.  While the majority of our vacation is usually spent enjoying time together, I always allow some time for photography (usually in the early morning, before the rest of the gang is awake).  Here are some additional thoughts (illustrated with many new images) regarding subjects and places to photograph in Atlantis, fun things to try, and ways improve your images.

1)  There is great light before dawn and after sunset.  We all love images with the beautiful light of sunrises and sunsets. Often the early morning (i.e. about 45 to 15 minutes before sunrise) and late evening (i.e. the "blue" light, about 15 to 45 minutes after sunset) provides wonderful photographic opportunities.  There are several smartphone apps (e.g. "Exsate Golden Hour") which provide extremely useful information regarding lighting conditions in your location (i.e. times of "golden hour" and "blue hour", when and where the moon and sun will rise, etc.).

Winding Palm Tree after sunset.
Cove Beach, near cabanas.

Clouds after sunset (taken with 500 mm telephoto).

2)  Try long exposures.  Atlantis has loads of water, and much of it is moving.  One way to create a beautiful and interesting image to take a multiple second exposure.  For this to work, your camera should not shake at all, so it should be on a solid tripod.  Its best to use an external cable (shutter) release, as the process of pushing the shutter button moves the camera, which would result in a blurry image.  When you get it right, you can smooth out waves or motion in the water to create a silky, ethereal quality.

Jetty and ocean before sunrise.
15 second exposure with variable ND filter.

View of Marina from back of Royal Towers at dusk.
10 second exposure with variable ND filter.

3)  Work a scene.  If you find a situation that you like, explore it, move around, and experiment with your composition. Photographer Ernst Haas said "The most important lens you have is your legs."  Below, the first two images show a bridge and the Royal Towers. I experimented by taking the first photo with the bridge on my right, while the next image was taken on the bridge.  The second set of photographs were taken before dawn from our balcony in The Cove. I played with my composition by emphasizing the sky in the first one, and the land in the second.

Bridge and Royal Towers 1
(Take with Bridge to the Right).

Bridge and Royal Towers 2
(Taken on the Bridge).

Early Morning 1
(Taken from Balcony in The Cove).

Early Morning 2
(Taken from Balcony in The Cove).

4)  Experiment with reflections.  As I had mentioned in the prior Atlantis blog post, a reflection can be incorporated into a landscape photograph to mirror something else in the image. In the first image below, the Royal Towers are reflected in Paradise Lagoon (taken just after sunrise near the Lagoon Bar and Grill).  For the  next image, I photographed a small section of the Royal Towers reflection with a fast shutter speed to create an abstract image. The third photograph below (taken with my android cell phone), shows reflections in a water lily pond at The Cove.  The setting reminded me of a Claude Monet impressionist painting.

5)  Keep your eyes open, experiment and have fun!  Between wildlife, artistry, architecture, and the beautiful setting, there are endless photographic opportunities in Atlantis.  Even if you've photographed something before, try it again in different light or from a new perspective.

Heron at The Cove.

Detail of Mural on Ceiling of theLagoon Bar and Grill.

Sunrise from The Cove.

"Here Comes the Sun": How to Create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photograph of a Sunrise

"Little darling

It's been a long, cold lonely winter

Little darling

It feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun..."

George Harrison

(The Beatles)

Perhaps it was our "long, cold" winter in Bucks County, Pennsylvania that had me itching to take a sunrise photograph. I took the Delaware River and Train Bridge photograph just a few days ago, about a mile from my house.  A beautiful sunrise somehow combines wonderful drama and color with sense of peacefulness. Its the literal and symbolic beginning of a new day. A fresh start. 


Photographing a sunrise can be tricky business.  Once the sun starts to come up, you are faced with a subject with both very bright areas and very dark areas.  While our eyes magically sort this out, the camera has a harder time.  If you take an image with a correct exposure for darker parts of the scene, the sun will be overexposed and washed out.  If you get a correct exposure for the sun, the rest of the image may be nearly black.

There are a few ways to photograph a sunrise in a manner that replicates what our eyes see.  If there is a clear line between the bright area and the dark area, a graduated neutral density filter can be handy. However, often situations are more complicated than that.  For example, in the first image below (Delaware River and Train Bridge) the areas of relative dark and light are juxtaposed throughout the scene.  Its not a simple matter of the top being bright and the bottom being dark.  For situations like this, I like to create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image from multiple separate exposures. For the Delaware River and Train Bridge photograph, I took eight separate exposures (you can see each of these exposures under the photograph).  If you would like to learn more about the process of creating an HDR photograph, please skip to the bottom of this post.  


Here is a sampling of my sunrise photographs from the past few years.  In addition to a few images near my home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, I have included iamges from The Bahamas, Acadia National Park (Maine), Myrtle Beach (South Carolina), Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C.  To see more of my photographs or to purchase an image, click HERE.

Delaware River and Train Bridge
Yardley, Pennsylvania (Bucks County)
March, 2015

Here are the eight separate exposures used to create the above
HDR photograph.  These all have ISO 200 and Aperture of f/16.
The shutter speeds range from 1/2 second (upper left)
to 1/200th of a second (bottom right).

Old Chevrolet Truck
Hopewell, New Jersey (Mercer County)
April, 2013

Delaware River from Lumberton Footbridge
Lumberton, Pennsylvania (Bucks County)
December, 2014

View from "The Cove"
Atlantis, The Bahamas
December 2014

Acadia National Park, Maine
View from Cadillac Mountain
August, 2011

Cherry Grove Pier
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
April, 2014

Cherry Grove Pier
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
April, 2014

View from Mount Washington,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
February, 2014

U.S. Capital
Washington, D.C.
August, 2014

CREATING A HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) PHOTOGRAPH:  For 99% of my images, I prefer to shoot in manual mode.  When I want to create an HDR photograph of a particular scene, I usually place my camera on a tripod. This avoids any blur in your image (i.e. if you are using a slow shutter speed). Also, it insures that each of your exposures has close to the exact same content.  You then take a series of exposures (holding constant the "aperture" - the size of the opening of the shutter), and changing the exposure speed in regular increments.  You want to make sure that you have a correct exposure for each part of the scene - from the darkest part to the lightest part.  

As an example, let's look at the Delaware River and Train Bridge photograph.  To create this, I took eight separate exposures.  For each of them, the aperture  was f/16 (because I wanted a pretty wide depth of field). For the darkest parts of the scene (i.e. the bridge and the ground in the lower right) the correct shutter speed at f/16 was 1/2 second.  I then shot a series of exposures at regular intervals ("full stop" increments) until I reached the brightest part of the scene (the sun needed a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second). I then had eight separate images (you can see each of these exposures above, under the Delaware River and Train Bridge image). Once I returned home, I uploaded all of my images onto my computer. Then I used HDR software (I use "Photomatix") to merge the eight exposures into one image.  This final image has the correct exposure for each part of the picture.  I then used Photoshop and OnOne software to put the "finishing touches" on the image.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side: Photographing Animal Faces

I'm just back from a safari encompassing Africa and parts of Asia.  Well, not exactly.  Actually, I spent a few hours the other day at the Philadelphia Zoo with the self-imposed assignment of photographing animal faces.  Under my images are a few tips in case you are interested in taking your own zoo photographs.

Snow Leopard Cub

Mother Giraffe with Calf

Black and White Colobus Monkey an Baby

Red Panda

Southern White Rhinoceros

Bighorn Sheep

There's a certain amount of luck involved in getting good animal photographs.  The animals have to be out and visible, the weather has to be good, and so forth.  That said, if you'd like to improve your zoo photographs, here are a few tips:  1) When possible, go at a time when the zoo is not too crowded, such as a weekday morning.  2)  Use a telephoto lens for nice close-ups (I use a Sigma 150-500mm telephoto zoom lens); 3)  If shooting through glass (like in my snow leopard shot), be careful to angle your shot to minimize the reflection in the glass.  4)  Pay attention to the background.  If you want your image to look "natural", you want to avoid buildings, fences, or other manmade objects.  5) In most cases, you want a fast shutter speed, as most animals move around quite a bit.  For instance, in my giraffe image, I wanted to catch the giraffes with their tongues. I watched the pattern of their behavior so that I could time it just right, and I shot at 1/1000 of a second.  6)  Ask the docents for information on anything special at the zoo.  A very friendly and informative docent let me know about the snow leopard cubs as well as the gibbon baby.  7)  If you're shooting through a mesh fence, use a shallow depth of field to render the foreground fence nearly invisible.  For instance, my photograph of the mother white-handed gibbon and baby was shot through a mesh fence, I used f/5.6 at 1/500 second.  Also, you may need to turn off your autofocus (which may be "tricked" into focusing on the fence, rather than the animal). 8)  Most of all, have fun and enjoy the beautiful, interesting creatures that share our planet.

If you'd like to see more of my photographs, click here:  
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