08/08/16 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Milky Way over Buffalo Point, Buffalo National River
Taken with a Pentax K1 and 15-30mm lens @ 15mm and F 3.2 ISO 3200 for 2 minutes using the Pentax Astrotracer function in camera.
This was my first test for night photography with the Pentax K1, and overall I was pleased with the results from the Astrotracer feature in camera. This photograph is a combo from a 2 minute Astrotracer shot for the MilkyWay, and several different shots for the foreground at various times. I used a small lantern down by the bluff to add some local illumination.
Chris Kennedy and I worked for about 2 hours, starting with a very clear night sky and temperatures around 89 degrees with 100% humidity. 2 hours later the temperature was about the same, so I was sweating just standing around waiting on the camera. But there was little to no wind so I was able to pull a nice reflection of the bluff on the river and if there had been a bit more water or a better angle by me, I might have gotten a Milky Way reflection.
Buffalo Point is one of the more popular spots on the Buffalo River, and the only campground with full electric hookups, so it will always be crowded in the summer months. You can either reserve a campground in the lower camping loops or you can try to get a spot in loop A, where it is always first come first serve, and loop A is the original WPA worked sites. I hope to get back to work this place in fall, both for the Milky Way and later on for Star trails. Star Trails will be a bit more difficult due to the location of the moon and due north.
Paul Caldwell
06/18/16 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Nighttime skies over Falling Water Creek
- At June 18, 2016
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
- 0
Taken with a Nikon D750, ISO 3200, 15 seconds with a Nikon 14-24 lens at 14mm F 2.8 for main night sky and a series of shorter exposures to blend in the lantern and water.
Working with the night sky can be easy and hard and on this night it was a combination of both extremes. I was working with Chris Kennedy at Falling Water Falls in the Arkansas Ozarks. Falling Water Falls is one of the more known spots and very often has a lot of folks either swimming or just hanging around. But at midnight, I have yet to run into anyone (at least human). I have thought about this spot many times for either star trail work or the Milky way and have successfully taken many star trail shots here, but have never worked the Milky Way. The conditions for the best Milky Way shooting are a moonless night or as close to it as you can get. On this night Chris and I were working with a very small amount of moon less than 16% and we both hoped that this amount of light would not effect the Milky Way’s luminace, but we were wrong. As soon as the last of the sunlight was gone, we could quickly see that there was quite a bit of light being provided by the 16% moon, which was setting directly behind us. On this night, June 8th, the Milky Way was due south and very faint at first. This was as strange night as there was too much moonlight to really see the Milky Way but the stars were amazingly bright. Also this small amount of moonlight did not provide very much light to the falls and surrounding area, so we quickly fired up a lantern.
The night was very muggy and dead calm. Normally I want dead calm, but as soon as I fired up the lantern every bug in the area made a bee line for the light and for the rest of the night we were covered in bugs. There were also a lot of lightening bugs and they added a strange effect to a lot of the star stacks. We kept looking for the Milky Way to the southwest as both of our star tracer apps were pointing us that direction but we could not see it. After working for about 1 hour I happened up to the top of the falls and for the first time could really see that the Milky Way was off to the southwest and very low on the horizon. Strange!, but still possible to shoot.
We quickly left out spot on the far side of the falls. We had set up here as it was the only only place to really get a clear view of the sky below the falls. Once on top on the large ledge that creates Falling Water Falls, we could clearly see the Milky Way just over the tree line. The moon was so low in the sky now that it was not providing any illumination at all, so Chris walked out on the ledge and held the lantern. It really made the shot in that the lantern provided just enough light to the immediate parts of the trees and gave a very nice fade out. The trick was holding the lantern totally steady for the 17 seconds required to shoot the sky. We actually both tried this for each others shots and it came out very nicely. I have left one piece of lens flare in this shot as it’s not really hurting the shot. The 14-24 will flare always, when given any chance. This will be an easy one to take out later.
I used the Nikon D750 for this shot and I was very impressed! The ambient temperature was around 70 degrees F and the relative humidity had to be 100%. I shot the entire sequence at ISO 3200 with the 14-24 wide open at F2.8. The longest exposure I used was 20 seconds and there was just a bit of trailing on the far sides which I did take out with a custom brush in Photoshop. At 20 seconds I was just able to get enough of the unique color of the Milky Way, however the rest of the frame was totally blown out due to the lantern. So I then shot a series of short frames the shortest exposure @ 6 seconds and then combined various elements from 3 different shots to get the final work. There was no wind blowing or very little most times so the leaves are not blurred and can add a nice effect. The lantern added a very warm tone to the trees and water so I also tweaked that back to a more neutral tone.
Overall I am pretty happy with this attempt. If there had been much more water coming over the falls, then all the trees below the falls and on the side would have been moving due to the force of the water. The lantern captured the nice green color of the water which is common to all Arkansas streams this time of year. For the Milky Way, I spent the most amount of time as it was just barely showing so I used several different adjustment brushes in Lightroom to help bring out the colors and different tones common with the nightsky. The stars were very bright this night and they add a very nice contrast to the night sky above the Milky way.
02/25/16 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Sunset Falls on Mt. Magazine aka Chris Kennedy Falls
PLEASE NOTE: All of the photography of this website is the property of www.photosofarkansas.com and is copy right protected. Do not copy any of the images on this site to paste on Facebook, Pintrest, or any other website without the permission of Paul Caldwell. Years of time have gone into capturing these photographs, please respect that. I do not take copy right infringement lightly. If you have a need to display any of my work on your site ASK me before you Copy & Paste.
Taken with an Nikon D810 & 14-24 lens @ 14mm, F11 ISO 64 through 400 in a series of bracketed exposures, combined into a single photograph in Lightroom.
In Yosemite National Park, there is a famous spot where during the month of February you can catch the setting sun illuminating a slender waterfall. Once the angle of the sun moves past a certain point the light falls beyond the waterfall. The problem is there tends to be over 1000 people lined up to get the same shot, so it’s really become a common shot. Still a thrill to get, but 1000’s of copies floating around the internet and in various galleries.
By pure chance, one of my friends, Chris Kennedy found this place on Mt. Magazine. I am sure this creek has a name, but I felt it fair to give Chris title. I have seen thousands of waterfall shots taken in Arkansas, but I have never seen one that features the setting sun, both in the shot and illuminating the waterfall. I knew of a different spot a bit further down on Highway 9 and had mentioned this to Chris to check out. During that trip, he found a second series of waterfalls, just up the highway, and while he was photographing them, he realized that it was possible to catch the sunset on the waterfall. Chris sent me a shot the next day and I was transfixed! Chris mentioned to me in passing that the trip to the base of this waterfall was about like the hike down Big Devil’s creek from Hill Cemetery, a hike I had made many times, so I was not too worried about it. I had a lot to learn.
Highway 9 heads up the south side of Mt. Magazine out of Havana Arkansas. On the way up you will cross several small creeks that really just runoff from the summit of the mountain. The largest creek in the area Shoal, starts up on the other side of Magazine and runs to the north. As you wind up Hwy 9, you will come to a spot where two small creeks cross the highway and then come together. This spot has obviously been photographed many times before as there is a worn down trail to a vantage point. This creek now bounces down a very steep gorge over many more waterfalls, and disappears out of sight headed south. While walking along the highway, Chris spotted a higher waterfall, much further down the creek, and headed down the hillside to get a better view and in the process discovered this wonderful view.
The waterfall, is actually in 3 parts and in this photograph, you are viewing only the top part of the waterfall, which is also the highest single point. It’s about 20 to 25 feet tall from the very base. The creek then winds around the shale bluff and makes two more nice drops before emptying into a nice pool. The sun in January, is at just the right angle to shine on the base of the falls, providing a beautiful shot. Chris told me that you only have about 10 minutes to catch the light before the best part of it moves away from the falls.
I headed up to this spot with Dr. Todd Smith, (and will tell more of that story on my blog), and we were both able to get to the base of the falls just in time to catch this shot.
A few points of consideration:
- This waterfall has one of the most dangerous approaches I have ever attempted in Arkansas in over 40 year of hiking this state. You are hiking down a pitch of at least 55 degrees or more at times and it’s all loose rock
- About 1/2 of the way down you will hit a band of large loose rock that is full of pitfalls and places to break your ankle, there is an old crashed car laying in this part of the decent. This is a steep enough spot that if you lean too far backwards, you will fall.
- The last 20 feet to the base of the waterfall is along a 55 degree pitch, where if you slip, you will be headed straight down to the bottom 10 feet below. The area is just a muddy hillside and very slick
- When you are photographing the waterfall, you need an extremely wide angle lens, and a full frame sensor, (no APS-C cameras) if you want to get both the full waterfall and the setting sun. I used a 14mm lens
- Make sure to pack a series of filter and a tripod as this shot has to be bracketed.
- The trees above the waterfall are moving all the time due to the force of the water, so plan on shooting at least one frame at a faster ISO and shutter speed to stop the motion
- The hike out, well, lets just say it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s ten times worse than the hike down as the entire hillside is just loose rock, so you may climb 3 feet just to slide back 1.5 feet. The use of a rope on the last 50 feet would be strongly advised and something I plan to bring the next time I attempt this shot.
- You can try to come at the falls from a little bit further down the highway, but trust me the going is not any easier as the forest floor is just a bunch of broken rock and it make for very difficult footing.
- It’s very apparent that some blasting was done for the Highway above here and the rock just all fell away down the hillside and is very loose, footing is very tricky.
Overall this has to be one of the more unique places I have ever worked in Arkansas and have been to many. I would not attempt this hike alone, as there is just too much a risk, and I was glad to have Todd and Chris with me both times I headed down to the falls. This hike will give you just a bit more appreciation as to just how high Mt Magazine is and steep. The result is well worth the hike.
Paul Caldwell
02/05/16 Featured Landscape Photography–Wintertime on White Oak Mountain near Hector Arkansas
PLEASE NOTE: All of the photography of this website is the property of www.photosofarkansas.com and is copy right protected. Do not copy any of the images on this site to paste on Facebook, Pintrest, or any other website without the permission of Paul Caldwell. Years of time have gone into capturing these photographs, please respect that. I do not take copy right infringement lightly. If you have a need to display any of my work on your site ASK me before you Copy & Paste.
Taken with a Phase One XF camera & IQ260, 55mm LS lens and CL-PL. Image is composite of 3 vertical images with the 55LS set to it’s nodal point.
This past winter I started trying to find some new places to photograph in Arkansas. I have worked Falling Water Creek and Richland for years and still love that part of Arkansas, but I felt it was time to move on. I had heard a lot about White Oak Mountain from Chris Kennedy and wanted get a look at the area in winter. If you hike into a spot in Arkansas for the first time, I always recommend coming in winter or early spring as you will see a lot more of the surrounding areas. Later on in summer the trees will hide a lot and the undergrowth makes hiking in general much harder.
White Oak Mountain, is actually a long ridge that runs east and west near Hector Arkansas. To get there, you need to drive to Hector, through the town and as soon as cross a small bridge over a minor creek, you will see a dirt road heading up to the right. Stay on this road for about 7 miles, there will be some turn offs but once you find the right spot, you can hike right down into a great creek valley. This creek has a nice run which offers several nice smallish waterfalls in quick succession. If you hike up the far hillside, you can find some much more dramatic waterfalls, but these will only be running after a locally heavy rain.
What I found most interesting on White Oak mountain was the number large boulders that were just laying in the creek. This reminded me of Richland creek, however the terrain is a bit more open than on Richland.
Once you are done in the creek valley walking is very easy and you can make good headway. There is a RV trail and a marked hiking trail that will take you down to the creek. This creek outwardly appears to be about 1/5 the volume of Richland creek, but the unique geography surrounding the creek makes the hike worth a trip. I would warn anyone that crossing this creek in high water could be a bit dangerous as the bottom is full of large mossy rocks easy to slip on.
I hope to make another trip here in the future to see what the area looks like in Spring with more water running.
To capture this photograph, I used a Phase One XF camera with a IQ260 Medium Format back and 55mm LS lens. The photograph was taken with a nodal panorama setup and I used the captures to make the one horizontal shot. To slow the water down I used ISO50 on my camera and a polarizer. As you can see in the photograph, the light was already marching up the far side of the valley, so I did not need a ND filter. The raw files were converted in Capture One software and then I used PtGui to stitch the 3 images together. I then added a bit of Topaz clarity to my liking.
12/15/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Big water at Cedar Falls on Petit Jean Mountain
Taken with a Phase One P45+, Mamiya 35mm F 3.5 lens, for approx 1 second, with a circular polarizer, ISO 50.
The view of Cedar Falls on Petit Jean mountain is always impressive, but when you have a lot of water and fall colors, well, it just gets better. There was almost too much water running this day as the force of the water made all the sweetgums up by the falls be in constant motion. I was not really able to get to a shutter speed that would stop them totally so they just really blend into a mass of yellow. I had hoped for some red and yellow colors as is common with the sweet gums, but this year they were only yellow. Lots of folks don’t realize that the water in Cedar Creek is has such a brown tint to it. But on this day it just seemed to add to the overall shot.
To get this photograph, I had to stand in the water and cross out into the creek. Standing where I was the spray coming off the falls was also pretty constant. I had tried to get closer, but the spray was just too much to handle as it covered the front of my lens very quickly. I used a circular polarizer even though the sun was not out as it always seems to help bring out better overall colors and there was still glare on the rocks. I tried several shutter speeds this day, but anything over 1 second just did not look very good as the there was too much water moving by at such a high rate speed.
Cedar falls is one of the highest “real” waterfalls in Arkansas at over 75 feet tall. You can hike down to the base of the falls the trail that starts at the back of Mather Lodge.
PLEASE NOTE: All of the photography of this website is the property of www.photosofarkansas.com and is copy right protected. Do not copy any of the images on this site to paste on Facebook, Pintrest, or any other website without the permission of Paul Caldwell. Years of time have gone into capturing these photographs, please respect that. I do not take copy right infringement lightly. If you have a need to display any of my work on your site ASK me before you Copy & Paste.
12/05/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Breakout
Taken with a Canon 5D MKII, and 24-70MKI lens, iso 400 Single exposure
Flatside Pinnacle, really is the gateway to the Ouachita mountains and the view to the west from the summit is well worth the drive out from Little Rock. Don’t confuse this with Pinnacle Mountain, which is much closer to Little Rock. Flatside pinnacle is around 1,500 feet tall, which puts it higher than Petit Jean, and Mt. Nebo. On a clear day you can can see Forked Mountain way off in the distance and also Mt. Magazine, the highest spot in Arkansas. Looking behind you can make out the eastern end of Petit Jean mountain and the Mt. Nebo and Spring Mountain. Flatside was recently heavily defaced with paint which just goes to show there are SOME REALLY FRIGGIN STUPID PEOPLE out there. Not sure why they bother to come out. I have worked on the graffiti now about 3 times over the past year and it’s finally starting to wear off, but it’s a damn shame that some folks just don’t get it and want to ruin it for everyone.
This was a morning that really did not turn out to be a very good day, but there was a brief period where the sun managed to break through the heavy clouds and really the effect was wonderful. Fall was in full bloom and so the colors down in the valley from the summit of Flatside Pinnacle were excellent. I worked this image up in Lightroom and then used Topaz clarity to help bring out more of the rays of the sun in the fog. This light only lasted about 10 minutes and then the clouds settled back down over the entire valley. Just another example of just how much photography is luck and being able to be at the right spot at the right time.
Flatside is worth a hike anytime of the year. It offers some of the best sunsets in the Ouachitas. Sadly the wilderness boundary continues to become more and more defined by recent clear cuts, which leave huge swatches of solid green pine trees in their place. If you go after a big storm or in winter you might want to bring a chainsaw or handsaw as it’s quite possible to find a recent fallen tree blocking the road.
12_02_15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Autumn afterglow at Sam’s Throne
Taken with a Canon 1ds MKII (16MP), multishot bracket for exposure, Canon 24-70 @ 24mm F 11 iso 200
This an example where it pays to work with older files, in this case, way back 2004, with more modern software. I have taken a lot of sunsets at Sam’s Throne, however this is still one of my all time favorites. When I purchased my Canon 1ds MKII, which had 16MP, I started retracing many of trips to places I loved to go as I felt that 16MP would be about the maximum in resolution for a long time to come. We all know that changed pretty quickly. However on this evening, I found the best shot was after the sun set as it painted a wonderful afterglow in the sky. Sam’s Throne was just starting to change for fall but there was plenty of color around. To make the shot perfect, the couple of clouds that rolled into the frame helped to breakup the solid sky.
Sam’s Throne is one of premier climbing spots in Arkansas but it’s also one of the best for photography. You have a huge bluff line that runs at least 1/2 mile or longer and allows for wonderful views of the Big Creek valley. In this view you can see the Throne itself and all the rolling hilss that work their way off into the distance. The forest here is a good mix of both pine and deciduous trees, mainly Oak, and Gum but there are also some nice Maples scattered though the valley. One of the best aspects of Sam’s Throne is the fact that you can drive very close to the bluffline and you only have about a 1/8 of a mile walk to get started. Sam’s Throne is a great place to camp also as there is now a primitive campground with about 10 sites.
As this series of shots was taken with an older Canon Digital camera, the noise in the shadows was excessive. The 1ds MKII was not noted for extreme dynamic range. Back in the day, I shot almost everything in brackets knowing I would need multiple shots to get the exposure coverage I needed without excessive noise even at base iso or one step up. I had worked this image many times with various HDR software toolsets, but never really received the output I was looking for. Now that Adobe Lightroom has an excellent HDR tool, I decided to go back and try this shot again. The result was impressive and I found a much better overall image. The big advantage to HDR in LR is that Lightroom leaves that output as an .dng, in essence a raw file. This means you have all the flexibility of a raw file but with the added exposure blend, and you can still use the excellent Lightroom Toolset. I have started going back to a lot of my early Canon photography and working it back in LR and the results have been impressive.
11/12/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Haw Creek falls in Autumn
Taken with a Canon 1ds MkI, and and Canon 24-70 lens, iso 200.
I had to dig back a few years to find this, as it goes back to 2004, but since Arkansas had such a terrible fall in 2015 I have found myself doing this a lot lately. Haw Creek has some wonderful fall color displays but catching the falls with water in them and fall colors is one of the harder things to do. On the afternoon I caught this shot, I have been driving around looking for late fall color, stopping at both Falling Water Falls, and Richland Creek, but neither of them had much water. For some reason the rain that fell the night before did hit the Haw Creek drainage harder and the falls were running. I almost did not make the driver over from Lurton on Hwy 7, but was glad I did.
I was able to setup and get this shot before the sun moved over to the lower left of the frame. As it was the sun was perfect hitting on both the falls and the pool below. Note the green color, which is common to all Arkansas Ozark streams, but seems to be more prominent in the fall and winter. I have always assumed it’s due to the limestone content in the water.
I shot this photograph in 3 separate segments as I was wanting to get more overall resolution. The older Canon 1ds MKI only had 11MP and that’s just not enough for a large print. Now that Lightroom has added a stitching solution, I am going back to a lot my older Canon work, either from the 1ds or 1ds MKII as both cameras captured great color, but I was using either a totally manual stitching method or a Zork adapter. Using Lightroom’s new solution makes for a much faster stitching process and you are left with a dng file. This allows you still use Lightroom’s excellent tools on the image as if it was a raw file.
This year, the colors were terrible at Haw Creek, mainly brown. The water level was actually pretty good for a few day’s and I ran into a few photographers up there, but I didn’t even get my camera out. The trees just didn’t have any life to them.
11/10/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Springtime View of Haw Creek Falls
Taken with a Phase One IQ260 and Arca rm3di tech camera/40mm Rodenstock lens
This is a typical day at Haw Creek falls, and I was again lucky to be there without anyone else to stand around and get in the way during the shoot. Haw Creek is a lovely smallish creek that runs in the Big Piney Creek, not far from these falls. The falls are impressive since there is a large ledge that runs all the way across the creek and in higher water conditions the water will start to consume the entire ledge. I like to catch water about like this, just enough to keep most of the ledge in play but not too much to flood out the rocks below the falls. To get this shot, I used my Arca rm3di camera which allows movements like a large format camera with my digital camera back. The shot is actually a composite of 3 images, Left, Center and Right. The Left and Right segments represent 16mm of shift in those respective directions. This allows you to create a very high resolution panorama without any of the issues like parallax. The lens I used was as 40mm Rodenstock HR-W which allows for an excellent field of view when shifted.
You have to be careful when working Haw Creek as there tends to be a lot of wind blowing down the creek. In most cases, I prefer to take a 1 to 4 second exposure of the water which in most cases will have a lot of wind blur in the trees. So you have make sure to cover the tree movement with a second series of exposures around 1/125 to 1/250 to stop the wind movement. It’s a simple process to combine the files later since I am using a tech camera and the movements are very precise. To allow the longer exposures I used both a Circular Polarizer and a Neutral Density filter. The polarizer will help with glare on the water and rocks and adds about 1.5 stops of exposure to the shot. As this was a bright day, I had to use a 1.2x ND filter. When I was taking the faster exposures for the trees, I left the polarizer on, but took the ND filter off as I no longer needed the extra exposure compensation.
As I already mentioned, Haw Creek Falls, tends to be overrun with people during the peak times of the year. The best day to go is a Monday as there will not be as many people at the campground and thus less traffic around the falls. There are some great swimming spots above the falls in the large pool that is created by the ledge. It’s a great place to head to when you know you have some water running in the creek.
Springtime sunset from Mt Magazine–03/23/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography
- At March 23, 2015
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
- 0
Taken with a Nikon D800e, single exposure with 0.9 ND grad filter on a Nikon 14-24 lens, F7.1 for 1/6 of a sec @ iso 320. The views from Mt. Magazine are some of the best vistas in Arkansas. The valley to the south, which is featured here looks towards Blue Mountain and below it, Blue Mountain lake. It’s easy to see where the timber industry has harvested all the natural hardwoods, below the Mt. Magazine as the deciduous trees run down the mountain to the park boundary. Springtime is a special time in Arkansas, I like to call the power puff period as all the trees will have different shades of green for about 2 weeks. After that, all the leaves will take on a similar dark green hue until fall.
This shot features the most famous tree on Mt Magazine, the bonsai shaped juniper. I would have loved to make it up to this spot when the huge dead cedar was still alive as it is a huge tree. It’s interesting still standing there and when you look at the roots, you have to wonder how it managed to live as long as it did as the vast majority of them are above the ground on the rock. Mt Magazine is the tallest spot in Arkansas at around 2,700 feet high.