If you can get away in the next few days, make sure you travel to Newton County. Anywhere you look, you will find excellent waterfalls. I would consider Smith Creek, Clark Creek, and Hemmend in Hollow for starters. The high bluffs along the Buffalo River will have small waterfalls running off of them. These falls will not be running very many days, only as long as the heavy rains continue. One of the best waterfall is the one at the western end of Roark Bluff. This waterfall must be close to 100 feet tall and falls directly into the Buffalo river. It is surrounded by trees and this of year makes for a excellent and rare shot.

Consider also any of the smaller hollows near the Buffalo as they will all be running at peak flow for the next few days.

For photography, I would consider taking slower exposures, 1.5 to 3 seconds. Use the lower ISO or ASA speed for your camera i.e. 100 or even 50. I would recommend also the use of a CL-PL (Circular Polarizer). This will cut the glare off the water and enhance the greens. Even though there most likely will not be much sun, a CL-PL makes a world of difference around water.

Make sure you bring a tripod or even a mono-pod to help support your camera for these longer shutter speeds. You may have to set a higher aperture, around F11 to F14 to allow your camera to take the 1″ to 3″ exposures. Also try to look for wind noise. If there is a lot of wind blowing the trees around in your shot consider taking two exposures, one for the water and then one for the trees. Move the ISO to around 320 to 400 and try for a shutter speed between 100th to 160th of a second. This will stop the wind noise and allow you to layer the two images together later.

Foggy trees on the Buffalo River.

Macro shot of moss.

However the Spring colors were just not there. I have traditionally loved the early Springtime in the Ozarks. You can get some just amazing colors due to the various shades of green as all the trees leaf out. I call it the powder puff effect. As you can see from this shot of Roark Bluff, the tops of the ridges look as if they are still in full winter and you can only see some very very slight budding out with the trees along the river. In this photo see if you spot the campers.

Roark Bluff

The Buffalo River was running around 126 cfs which is a good enough level to float. By the time I came back to the crossing at Steel Creek, there must have been over 200 canoes either launching or waitng to launch. It was good to see that many people coming up to float.

I briefly drove through the Boxely valley to see where the Elk might be. I found one large herd of cows at the field closest to the Ponca put in on the Buffalo. I spoke to Michael Dougherty later in the day and he mentioned that there were a few Bulls in the smaller fields closer to the Hwy 21 bridge.

Besides the dogwoods and redbuds, I felt it was considerably too early for the photography I like to take of this region. Hopefully the water will hold through full springtime so the waterfalls and streams will be at their best levels. This is a time of the year I love to work as Dogwoods are one of favorite subjects. I am always looking for a new angle on their beautiful blossoms.

A single Dogwood, captured near the upper Buffalo River.

I also stopped by Broadwater falls to work some HDR images of the falls, which I hope to post on my website later this month. The waterlevel at Broadwater falls was a bit low, but there were signs everywhere of how high it had been just the week before when the Buffalo was over 1000 cfs at Boxley.