12/15/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Big water at Cedar Falls on Petit Jean Mountain

A great shot of Cedar Falls with both a lot of water and great fall color.

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.

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