January 4, 2016

White River Falls

It's always fun to rediscover forgotten images. Especially ones you really like! I spent the first two days of 2016 tidying up a rather bloated Adobe Lightroom image library. In doing so, I rediscovered images I'd made of White River Falls in the winter of 2014.

White River Falls is an Oregon State Park which showcases the wild and scenic White River highlighted by a series of falls, one that plunges 90 feet, through a basalt lava basin. At the base of the falls, a hydropower plant that supplied the area with electricity between 1910 and 1960, lies in graffiti-rich ruins.

Since the park is only open Spring to Fall, I guess I was technically trespassing though there were no signs discouraging my entrance through an unlocked gate. It had been extremely cold that week and, having seen photos of the park, I suspected I might find an exceptionally icy landscape. I'd arrived late in the afternoon and initially explored the hydro plant ruins. Next I found some interesting ice patterns in an eddy below the falls but could not coax a composition out of the chaos. Before I knew it, evening was coming and it was getting very cold.

A smidgen disappointed, I set to climb back out of the canyon. Pausing at a makeshift viewpoint in the trail, I saw the falls had taken on a more mystical feel in winter's evening light. A thin veil of dusk-lit clouds adding a luminous soft box effect to the scene. What I had disregarded as a mediocre, even cliché, photo a couple hours earlier, was now full of possibility. The low light required a longer exposure (~5 seconds) rendering the water a milky white, helping to both contrast and compliment the structured ice and rock textures framing the river's path within the composition.

What a joyful little rediscovery to start the new year.