Winter Visions

Latourell Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Troutdale, Oregon

I began 2024 with a disagreement with the editor of an online magazine that I had been submitting my images to. It involved the revolving criteria they used for admitting images. Here to for, images could not include animals nor humans. However,  in the last competition, the winning image contained an egret. My point them was, either abide by the standards that you set or change them so everyone has an equal footing. Consequently, I am taking a hiatus from submissions and thought that I would post here what would have been my submission for their contest “Winter Visions.”

 As you will notice, this image contains a human. Interestingly, they had admitted images that also contained humans, but not in a dominant position. This image needs a human, as I point out below, to lend proportionality to the size of the waterfall. Here is my writeup on the image.

Sony 7r Mark II, Sony FE 16-35mm f/4, 1/60 at f/8, ISO 400

 At just 30 miles away from Portland Oregon, along Interstate 84 begins the Columbia River Gorge, one of the largest National Scenic Area’s in the US. The Gorge stretches for 80 miles and not only does it offer 90 waterfalls to visit and explore but there are literally 100’s of hiking trails and bike paths to challenge even the most hardcore enthusiast. On this particular day, in early January, the weather had been usually cold, in the 20’s and 30’s for more than week and hounded by photography friends, I venture out to capture some winter waterfall images.

 Personally, I am not a big fan of shooting waterfalls in winter. I think the ice surrounding their plum kind of distracts from their beauty. I would much rather capture them in Spring and in fall, with the nice fresh green foliage surrounding them or be challenged by the colors of autumn. Whatever, I was out there to see what I could find. I began my visit at the Eastern side of the Gorge, visiting Wahclella Falls, then Horsetail Falls, Elowah Falls, Multnomah Falls, and a couple of others, before making my way to Latourell Falls, my last stop. When I got to the trail to Latourell Falls I was amazed at how unbelievably lucky I was to not find a young woman standing close to the chute taking her own pictures but with a bright read parka to top it off.

 I am big proponent of good composition these days and the resulting image uses two strong compositional lines. Shooting vertically, I have the horizontal line of the path leading to the small figure of the woman and the strong vertical line of the falls leading down.  Positioned at the bottom left of the golden mean she adds an element of perspective to the size of the waterfall, a 249-foot drop.  One of the drawbacks of photography is presenting the scale of the subject. One can take a picture of a tree like the Japanese Garden Cherry tree in Portland. Without a reference point, one would never know that tree is only around 7 ft tall.