Cedar Falls At Dawn

If I never accomplish anything else in life I can always say that I was the first person at Cedar Falls in Petit Jean State Park on October 10, 2009. It rained heavily across the Ozarks and Central Arkansas on Thursday night and Friday, so I knew the waterfalls would be running for a few days. The trouble was that Saturday was supposed to dawn with clear skies, and bright sun is no good for waterfall pictures. You need the muted light of cloudy skies to get good photos. I figured if I got out there before the sun got very high, I could do some shooting before things got too bright. Problem number two was that I’d have to go somewhere close by if I was going to be there at sunrise. The only real waterfall close enough for me to get to that early is Cedar Falls. I got up at 5:30 a.m. and got to the trail head a little after 7. And as luck would have it, it stayed cloudy, dark and gloomy all day. The top photo is a panorama made from six blended and merged photos.

But like I said, I was the first one at the falls, no mean feat because Petit Jean is one of the most popular parks in the state. It’s a pretty easy hike to the falls and not long after I got there, a long string of folks began arriving. With all that water and the green trees and slick green moss everywhere, the area has a jungle-like feel. The water had that stained, amber color like you see in the Amazon River. I could easily imagine King Kong showering under the waterfall. Cedar Creek was running much higher than normal and the 90-foot waterfall thundered and sprayed, but it wasn’t running as big as it did back in May. So get ready for a long string of blurry-water pics. (Matt, I’ve got something for you, too.)

Old tires are a popular item to toss into water bodies around here.

The side creeks were also running well off the canyon rim and had some nice waterfalls of their own. My friend Matt told me recently he didn’t really dig the smooth-water shots and requested some stop-action stuff the next time I did the waterfall thing, so I got the above photo for him. I didn’t think about his request while I was at the big waterfall or I would have tried it there. This shot was problematic because there wasn’t enough light to get a really fast shutter speed. I jacked up the ISO and still had to underexpose the shot. And it didn’t really stop the water that well.

This is the previous shot with a longer shutter speed.

The bridge across the creek downstream from the waterfall. As you can see in the earlier picture of the sign, just about every man-made surface (and a lot of the rocks and trees) are covered in graffiti. The handrails of the bridge have dozens of names written on or carved into it.

Self portrait. The wide angle lens distorted me a little. I don’t actually look that wide. At least I think I don’t.