Sweet Creek Falls and Kentucky Falls
As I’ve been telling all of my friends this week, this was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had. One son (Kit) arrived the day before I did, another (Devon) arrived the day after, and then the next day we go on a hike - I guess you can say it was an awesome start.We took advantage of Ann’s hikes and photo trips from the previous months and decided to do two hikes in one day - thanks to having learned that our GPS knows the logging roads in at least that part of Oregon. We started with Sweet Creek Falls, an easy hike with a diverse series of fairly small falls.
Portions of the hike are on elevated walkways to get through narrow areas, but at other locations you can easily get down to the creek and climb around.
I should probably warn you, but this vacation was a lot about photography. Ann and I and whoever would come with us taking advantage of getting out and just shooting. Ann learning her new camera and me with my fixed lens fujifilm that I’m still challenged to push to its limits.
As you can tell, the sun was out, which is a nightmare for photographing in the woods, so it was hard to get images that were not overly contrasty. So I used my time at Sweet Creek Falls to focus more on details and explore the sense of motion in water.
It really was fun just to play with photography again with no feeling as if I have to make great images. Just open my eyes to see, and then figure out how to photograph it.
As we headed back to the car, I asked the guys and Ann to let me get a shot.
Sweet Creek Falls Family
As for the one of Ann and me, well I guess Devon doesn’t know how to hold a camera steady - it was blurry.
So we took logging roads to go from Sweet Creek Falls to Kentucky Falls, which saved us about an hour and a half of driving (and then another extra hour home). At one point when I was swerving through some potholes Ann says, “I can’t believe these roads!” and I said, in a very different tone, “Yeah!” Everyone laughed when one of the guys said, “Pretty good compared to the roads in Liberia huh Dad?” To which I agreed!
Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures at Kentucky Falls. That trail ran farther away from the creek and, while there are a couple of much bigger falls, they don’t have good viewpoints or many places to get down around the creek to photograph. So we kept walking hoping to find a better shooting spot. By the time we gave up and backtracked a bit, it was hot, we were going uphill and we just weren’t in the mood to go exploring around the one location you can get something interesting at.
I guess I can include one of the shots Ann took on her initial scouting trip (much earlier in the day than when we were there) just so you know what it’s like. Yes, Oregon is beautiful!
Ann Kentucky Falls
I guess next time we go to Kentucky Falls, we know when to stop! Though I doubt I can top this image.