04/12/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Midday autumn calm along the Buffalo River

Autumn midday view of sweet gums and maples on the Buffalo River
Autumn midday view of sweet gums and maples on the Buffalo River

Autumn midday view of sweet gums and maples on the Buffalo River

Taken with a Nikon D800e, Nion 24mm 1.4 lens @ F7.1  1/250 of a sec shutter speed, iso 200.  On this day, the conditions were constantly changing.  I had been up on top of Roark Bluff most of the morning, but a large mass of clouds rolled in and pretty much shut things down for the morning.  I had gone back to my truck and I was figuring out where to head next when the clouds started to part.  The blue sky came out and within 20 minutes all of the clouds were gone!  I prefer to have some clouds in the sky when working with large masses of blue since the clouds will help break up the sky and allow for the use of a polarizer on a wide angle lens.  If I had just been shooting a solid blue sky, even at 24mm,  due to the angle of the sun I would of had the classic dark to light polarized effect that wide angle lenses can create.  However on a day like this with muted sunlight, you really want to have a polarizer on since it will make the colors in the leaves really stand out.  The polarizer also defeated any refection I was going to get on this shot but I felt it was a fair trade off.

 

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

Cloudy Day on Richland Creek, Newton County Arkansas
Cloudy Day on Richland Creek, Newton County Arkansas

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.

Copyright © Paul Caldwell, Photos of Arkansas