03/21/19 Broadway Bridge over the Arkansas River in Little Rock–Featured Arkansas Photography
- At March 20, 2019
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
- 0
Taken with a Nikon D850 and 24-70 lens, 4 vertical photos, stitched into 1 landscape panorama.
The new Broadway Bridge in downtown Little Rock/North Little Rock has been a eye catching subject since its’ completion. I wanted to catch the bridge in the magic 30 minutes of light after sundown, when the sky is still showing a slight blue tint. The motion of the cars moving over the bridge turned into a painting of light due the very slow shutter speed I selected of 3 to 5 seconds. This photograph is a combination of 6 different images as I also had to bracket my shutter speed to capture the full dynamic range of the scene.
I used a tripod to keep my scene as level as possible and did not worry about a nodal point. To be honest, way too much is made of finding a nodal point with modern stitching software. You just don’t have to worry about it as much. I had no trouble getting the railing in the immediate foreground to line up at all. I used Phase One’s Capture One software to develop the images and then stitched them together in Lightroom. I also had to work a bit to get the building straightened out since my camera was pointed up slightly. I went ahead and picked a aperture of around F10 to help with the star burst from the street lights.
Written for www.photosofarkansas.com please do not reproduce this image or any of the written material without permission.
11/18/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Foggy view of Roark Bluff
Taken with a Nikon D810, Nikon 24-120mm Lens, hand held @ 320iso for 1/100 of second, F 5.6
When I think of the Buffalo River, I tend to think about Roark Bluff and the beauty around that part of the river. Here you have two of the largest bluffs on the river, Roark and Bee both of which are well over 300 to 400 yards long. Each bluff has a unique character to it and the colors of the limestone comes alive in the early morning. At this time you have the valley totally fogged in. The fog will last for a while after sunrise and the best time to photograph the mornings is when the sun has started pop through the fog and adds a very unique light to the scene. Now add fall colors you have a real prime setting for sure.
On this morning, I was amazed to have the entire beach to myself, and I will take that when I can get it. It was a Sunday morning and the colors on the top of Roark Bluff had already turned brown, however there was still excellent color along the river. The top of the bluff seems to be mainly hickoy and maple, but on the riverbank there is a lot more variety. Here you will find oak, sweetgum, maple and gums. The display this morning was perfect. I had a tall gum tree on the upper left of the frame still showing the brillant yellows and reds, and across the river was another gum tree, but in pure yellow. In the foreground the river birch is starting to turn from green to yellow so overall it was a nice setting. I framed the shot with just a bit of the fog on the top of the shot. I still wanted to be able to see through the fog to make out the colors along the top of the bluff.
Roark is a great place to drive and spend the entire day. You can watch the sun move across the valley and enjoyed varied shooting situations during the day. Roark is one of my favorite spots for night photography, either star trail work or the milky way.
01/05/14 Featured Arkansas Photography–Dry Creek Falls in the good times
Taken with a Nikon D1x (remember that camera?) lens most likely Nikon 28-70 at 28mm, F11, for approximately 1 second, iso 200. There are some places in Arkansas that are special for me. Dry Creek (yes that is the name) was one of the best little hidden gems in the Ozarks. This little creek runs for about 3 miles before emptying into Cave Creek which eventually runs into the Buffalo River. Dry Creek Falls is about 2o to 25 feet tall and is unique in that it’s in a grotto that drops away from level ground so if you don’t know what you are looking for, you will walk right by it.
I made my first of many trips to Dry Creek Falls with Jim McDaniel who lives near by. Jim, I hope you are well. That day was a cold and wet January day and I only remembered that I wanted to come back to the falls with a good camera. The spot is really beautiful and is surrounded by different trees species that in the fall and spring really can add some great color to the scene. There is a classic pool below the falls and it was a great swimming hole for years.
In the past back in the 20’s and 30’s locals would come down to the base of the falls and have church services. I probably have hiked down to Dry Creek falls about 20 times but on the day this picture was taken, it was the best. The water was running at a great level, and the fall colors were just perfect. I was using a Nikon D1x 6MP camera which just did not have enough resolution to really capture this scene. I am glad I caught it that fall since I never was able to get the same wonderful fall scene again. I made several trips during the spring, but all my fall trips were dry runs (no pun intended).
Sadly in the 2009, Arkansas suffered through one of the worst ice storms in recent history. The trees around Dry Creek falls were damaged severely and the scene wonder of this spot was ruined. Now all that is there are broken tree tops and mass amounts of trash and broken off trees that have caught up below and at the edge of the falls. Many of the trees that rim the grotto have broken off or worse died and now are just standing dead trees. I tried to hike down to the falls in 2010 with Bob Shull and almost got lost since the trail had been so badly damaged by the winter storm and what looked like a small tornado. We eventually started to walk down the creek as the road that you normally follow was blocked by so many downed trees. By far the most amount of damage was at the falls themselves. They will never really look the same and it may take 50 years or more for the area to fully recover. One more testimony to just how fast nature can take change the way things look overnight.