The Falls at Dunloup Creek

One of my goals for this trip was to find great fall scenes. I paid particular attention to the creeks and rivers hoping to find something that I could do really creative things with. When I first saw the waterfalls at Dunloup Creek in the New River Gorge National River area, I could hardly get out of the car fast enough. At first I was frustrated because there were branches in the way of my view and I did not immediately see a way to get a clear view. Henry found a way that I could get the views I wanted.

While I did not shoot in any particular order, my goal was to get the big picture and then to find ways to photograph smaller portions of the fall in a more intimate view.

I used my 24-105mm lens with a polarizing filter to get the "big picture." I had it set at 35mm rather than the full 24mm wide angle because there were distracting elements that I did not want in the photo.



I zoomed in for a closer view at 47mm:



I changed to my 100-400 and moved the polarizing filter over. This one was shot at 100mm:



Now, look back at the "big picture." Do you see that very tiny double waterfall at the top. With the 100-400mm zoomed out to 320mm, that small cascade takes on a life of its own.



I probably spent an hour or more here, trying to find all the possible compositions. While none of these images are HDR, I was also shooting for HDR - so each composition had at least 3 exposures to be sure I had gotten the water action I wanted as well as the exposure on the rocks and fallen leaves. I was lucky that the weather was cloudy - so my lighting for this was nice and even. I could not have asked for anything better.