02/16/25 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunset from Peter Cave Bluff

At February 19, 2025
By paul
In Featured Arkansas Photography, Uncategorized
1

Sunset from Peter Cave Bluff–Buffalo River in Arkansas

One of my favorite spots to photograph Arkansas is from the Buffalo River. Recently I have started working around the middle river instead of the more popular upper river. The vantage points are just as nice and there are less people. Peter Cave Bluff is a staggered bluff, and has a wonderful view of the Buffalo. Looking upstream, you can see almost all the way to Woolum ford. Looking downstream, you have views of Blue and Red Bluff no1.

This shot was taken as as 5 shot exposure bracket and a Hasselblad X2D with a 21mm lens. Even with 5 shots, I still had trouble with the sun being blown out. I have found that the X2D is very sensitive to direct highlights, more so than the Fuji GFX100. Both cameras are using the same 100MP sensor. I worked two images out of the five. One with the sky and sun and the other had the river and landscape. There was an extreme amount of dynamic range required to capture the entire image. I used F13 on the 21mm lens hoping to get as much of the rocks in the foreground in focus. There was so much wind blowing that afternoon, I decided not to attempt a focus bracket.

I found that once I worked up the final image, I used the latest Topaz sharpening software to attempt to bring the foreground rocks into better focus. The result was not perfect, but still better than where I started. The fall colors were given even more luster by the setting sun. In the image you can see a couple of lines from the sun star I was able to capture. The muted sun in the clouds did not give a normal star and the Hasselblad lenses only allow for a a 8 point star due to their internal aperture.

Written for Photos of Arkansas by Paul Caldwell

02_07_22 Fall Sunrise over Western Pulaski County featuring Pinnacle Valley

Autumn Sunrise over Western Pulaski County, Arkansas

A composite image taken in 3 parts with a DJI Mavic 2 Pro Drone. The fall colors were just about peaked on the ridge in the foreground, and had already pushed past peak in the valley. I wanted to included the Maumelle River in this shot as I loved the look of it’s graceful curve at the bottom of the image. The Arkansas river flows in the background. The sky that morning was special with a wonderful peak/pink color and the rising sun popped the colors of the trees on the ridge. I found very few spots in the state in 2021 that had as much fall color as the Walton Heights Ridge.

Paul Caldwell

08/09/12 Featured Arkansas Photography–Richland Creek Reflections

Cloudy Day on Richland Creek, Newton County Arkansas

Taken with a Canon 1ds MKII, Single Exposure with a Canon 24-70 Lens @ 35mm, F11, iso 200. This is better than Richland Creek will look in the the for 2012 unless Arkansas starts to get a lot more rain. Currently the creek is dry for almost it’s entire length. There might still be a bit of water in the deeper pools along the lower creek below the campground bridge. However I doubt that most of the pools above the bridge have any water left in them. The USGS guage has not reported any level for Richland for about a month now, so I feel that the large pool at the campground bridge is dry also.

On a cloudy day you have a much harder situation to work with since your sky will attempt to go white or light gray. Personally for my work I don’t prefer to see the white sky effect and since I don’t tend to combine images, i.e. take the sky from one and the scene from another, when shooting a scene like this most times I will move in closer and take the sky out of the frame. On this day the light was very neutral, no visible highlights and the shadows were all pretty even. I still liked the visible color on the creek so I walked up looking for a scene that might work. This group of rocks is called Cindy’s Hole Rapid and is quite a fun drop when there is a bit more water in the creek. I like the way the rocks work all the way across the creek and have such distinctive shapes. Richland creek is a great day hike for any photographer looking for the beauty of Arkansas’s outdoors.