Brice Creek - January 2019

This past weekend Ann and I pretty much had to get out and do some photography - we were going stir-crazy.  Even if we have been working a lot on images lately, developing images (and the whole import into Capture One thing) is not the same as photographing.  It had been way too long since we’d been out to photograph.  Thinking about where we could go for a quick excursion led us to one of our usuals - Brice Creek!  

After discussing different locations, we decided to head out to a part of the creek we hadn’t been to for awhile, at a location where Trestle Creek meets Brice Creek.  It’s at the end of the normal trail where you park and head back down stream to get to the site.  The area is mid-way between the main funnel-falls area, and the two more secluded areas where we often like to photograph.  It was a good location because, despite the half-mile or so hike to get to, we got there nice and early (read: well before light), so hiking on a trail by head-lamp to get to an area that didn’t involve scrambling down wet, mossy rocks in the dark was a good thing.  

Best of all, neither of us had high expectations for image making - this was all about just getting out and photographing.

 Since we didn’t really start photographing until the pre-dawn was touching the sky, our first exposures required incredibly long exposure times.  Sometimes you just have to work with what you have.

However, it didn’t take long for the skies to lighten, which gave us much more flexibility in how to render the texture of the water.  

And after about half an hour, we had full lee-way in interpreting the flow of water.  And that’s what the day basically became for me, experimenting with the flow of water.

We’d had rain much of the previous week.  Fortunately it had stopped a few days earlier, which meant the initial silt flows had stopped, but the water hadn’t. It was clear and had that lovely glacier blue color. And it was raging!  My goal was to capture the sense of  powerful the rush of water had, and, if possible in images, the resulting sound that simply enveloped us.

At our first location, we didn’t have a lot of options for moving around.  We were on top of a large rock outcropping, made even smaller by the wetness on the sloped edges - we didn’t want to risk sliding on wet moss and taking a 10-foot dive into freezing water.

So, from a limited vantage point, we simply changed lenses and focused on different aspects of the subject before us. 

After about an hour or so, we climbed off our rock back to the trail and moved up stream. 

When we arrived at our second location the flow of the water was so great that a familiar area looked totally unfamiliar.  Instead of a lovely set of stepped falls, there was a cascade of water rushing down, and flowing over rocks that were usually exposed.

After observing the area for a while, my eye caught on a rock feature with water flowing over it. So I pulled out my camera began experimenting. I had two goals. First to see if my camera could capture what I was seeing in the water detail, then second to see what else photography could reveal.

I wound up working with the second idea first as I was setting up for my initial concept.  Realizing there was a strong composition that included a rock outcropping next to my original concept, I determined the appropriate framing and then started experimenting with exposure times.

And when I got home to look at the images, I experimented further with converting the image to black and white - appropriate due to the stark tonal contrasts in the image.

I eventually made it to the image that had initially attracted my attention.  It was a flow of water over dark rocks that, when the flow lightened up a bit, the dark rock base revealed itself as well as brilliant white fingers as the rushing water dropped off its ragged edges. 

With images like that, all you can do is try to find the right shutter speed for the water (which is very difficult when you have water flowing at different rates within the same image), and then make multiple images as the flow itself changes.  Each image is different.  It took me a few frames to time it right, but I got one where the dark rock was clearly revealed.  

I actually spent quite a long time experimenting with the above two images.  It’s impressive seeing how much varying the shutter speed can change the feel of water.  I know that’s the case, but one has to practice it to fully understand it, so that alone made the day worth while.

The sun was getting close to topping over the surrounding mountains and, as we’ve learned on several occasions, when the sun floods Brice Creek, making effective images is impossible.  So I decided to make one final image, returning more to the landscape.

You can see the rock from the last image in this photograph off to the left. 

It was fun to play with the timing of the photograph (as opposed to the shutter speed) because as the stream would surge, or recede, that little falls on the right would gush or stop altogether.  It became a game to time it so that enough water would surge down and stream as white.  There’s nothing wrong with a little play in one’s photography.  

So, while it was a fairly short photo trip, we got to enjoy the fresh air as well as the roar of water going over falls.  I even enjoyed the cold fresh air . . . at least for a bit.