The second waterfall on the Baltimore River I visited is called O Kun de Kun Falls, one of only a few plunge waterfalls in the U. P.. The waterfall is named after an Ojibway chief. After having no clouds for the previous falls, I was looking forward to a good time capturing this waterfall. Unfortunately, the sun started to pop out at the most inconvenient time causing some exposure problems.
On the Baltimore River in Ontanagon County Michigan are a couple of unique (in my mind) waterfalls. Upstream from O Kun de Kun Falls is it's little brother, the Upper Falls. It is also called Creamy Peanut Butter Slide according to kayakers. The walk back to the falls is a nice 45 minutes hike to the upper falls and just short walk downstream to the main falls which is my very next project. I loved the interesting rock formations and the multiple stream falls it created. I only wish I could have been able to get some better angles on the rest of the falls. Side note: In the final series of clips you will see a very large wasp nest in the tree on the right side. I was glad it was too cold for them to be around.
My first trip back up to the U.P. of Michigan in 2013, I decided to just slip across the border to the Black River waterway. I have been here before but did not visit all of the waterfalls on the river. There are five large waterfalls on this section of the river and all five are large and very dangerous. On this day the park was a popular place and this caused a few delays in my work due to the footsteps on the walkways which is pretty much the only way to view most of the falls. The surrounding gorge is very steep and not safe to climb down. I had to return a few weeks later to reshoot Gorge Falls as my footage from the first visit did not turn out. The waterfalls are: Great Conglomerate Falls, Potawatomi Falls, Gorge Falls, Sandstone Falls and Rainbow Falls.
Morgan Falls is a beautiful and unusual waterfall south of Ashland WI. I have been to this waterfall a couple of times in the past and I wanted to recapture it in HD time lapse. I arrived early in the morning with the rising sun and had the place to myself, for a while Soon, people started to show up wanting to climb the falls. Most waited until I finished up with each series of images I took. I wanted to show all of the different shelves of falls the waterfall has to offer and feel I did that very well.
What was supposed to be a cloudy day in Duluth, MN turned out to be quite sunny. This shoot was going to be a challenge and it was a tough one. The park has multiple beautiful waterfalls along the hiking trail making choosing the right ones a difficult choice. I needed to narrow it down to create one watchable video that wasn't too long. The last time I visited the park, I ended up with 4 videos of all of the falls. I spent a great deal of time on the last falls because of the fantastic gorge that surrounds it, but due to the sun popping in and out during the exposure time, it caused way too much flicker in the final video to use.
The final shot includes a guy I met while I was there. His name is Anthony and I thank him for his company and his participation in my video.
I have visited this waterfall twice before but fate was not on my side on those two visits due to the forces of nature (frozen, beaver dam, camera malfunctioning). This time the cloudy, rainy weather would be my friend. Due to a severe storm in July, there had been a tragic amount of damage to the trees and the surrounding area. One of those trees is still hanging and broken over the waterfall making capturing the waterfall quite a challenge. The park was filled with visitors enjoying the beautiful scenery.
I have visited this waterfall previously on many different occasions. It's located in River Falls, WI at Glen Park right under the swing bridge crossing the South Fork River. The last time was I here was in the winter when I first started out doing time lapse work where I met a really nice lady named Tami.
I arrived early in the morning with an almost perfect cloud cover. The sounds, smell and the feel of the falls were refreshing my senses; something I dearly needed. I spent most of the morning without seeing many people at the falls, another good thing. I tried something different this time by moving my myself parallel with the falls for series of shots, but always centering the frame in the same location.
I had stopped by the waterfall in Osceola Wi and found it filled with too many people. So I decicded to swing by Fairy Falls in Stillwater and see if it was worth my time to capture it. The falls were thankfully flowing which was good because this is a wet weather waterfall. The lighting was good but there was a nasty storm headed my direction. Soon the storm arrived stopping my work immediately. I returned the following Saturday morning and the weather matched almost perfectly. After few sets on the top of the falls, I climbed down in the gorge finished up my photographs. I had visited this waterfall back in the late 80's only to find a lot of the rock wall covered in graffiti with a good deal of trash at the bottom. This time there were no markings on the surrounding walls with only a few cans stuck in the rocks. Those I cleaned out for the video. I hope you enjoy my little adventure.
As I approached the falls a wave of memory came back to me of a canoe trip I took 40 years ago when I was 12 years old. I walked around the bend and found the place of our campsite. I have seen images of this waterfall online and started to wonder why I had not heard much about it. It turns out it's not really accessible via "public" entrance from the road. It is however on a river access if you were canoeing and needed to portage around the falls. The sun was slowly setting and the light was harsh but I like the glow from the highlights on the peaks of the falls.
Not having been to a waterfall in over 4 months, I felt that was long enough. I knew the South Fork River in River Falls, Wisconsin was spring fed, so figured is would be flowing enough to capture. I had been to the falls exactly one year earlier and the scenery was quite different. This year there were no colorful flowers growing anywhere, just snow and ice. The falls were still quite beautiful and I had the place to myself. It took about 4.5 hours to capture 4500 images I needed to create the video. The lighting was perfectly even as it was a very cloudy and rainy day.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
With the water levels so low in the waterways of Duluth, I headed up Highway 61 to Gooseberry Falls in hopes that the river had enough water flowing to make my trip worthwhile. As you can see there was enough to capture an almost 4 minute video. The park was quite popular that day due to the mild weather and I had to ask a few folks to wait a minute or two before that walked closer to the falls. Most were curious as to my style of photography and what I was doing, so that helped delay them a bit while gave them an simple explanation and my online username.
There are three main falls at the park; upper. middle and lower. This video is primarily about the middle falls with the last minute showing the lower falls. This waterfall is the beginning of a series of beautiful waterfalls that line Highway 61 all the way up to Canada.
This trip was a year in the planning. Last year, due to high water I was not able to get to the three remaining waterfalls on the lower section of the Slate River in Baraga County Michigan. This year the water level was low enough for me to hike up all the way up the river to Slate Falls, "Feltman Falls", Slide Falls, Ecstasy Falls and Kukucks Falls. There had been a recent wind storm in the area causing most of the colorful leave to be blown off the trees and on to the ground.
I decided to go back to the waterfall in Scandia, MN and re-shoot the falls in a HD time-lapse during the summer. Weather wise, it was a bad choice because it was almost 100 degrees with a high humidity, perfect for the mosquitoes. I sprayed some repellent on and instantly they were gone. Now it was just me, the waterfall and the toxic chemical I just put on myself.
I shot about 4000 images spending about four hours capturing the stream and falls with 4 weeks to put it all together. As usual, the light was constantly shifting over the scenes adding more editing time to each image. I used the same music that was used for the wintertime video of the same falls.
Shot with a Nikon D5100 camera and edited with Sony Vegas.
Just under the swing bridge on the north side of Glen Park in River Falls, Wisconsin is a nice little waterfall. I have visited it previously quite a few times to photograph it but never spent the time to capture it in motion. The weather that morning had been the best it could have been for winter with the trees covered in frost. Unfortunately, the heat of the city kept the frost away from the falls and the surrounding area
This time lapse took 1872 images to create with 35+ hours of editing time. I increased the speed of the "relaxing" music to better match the faster paced editing and video.
Pattison State Park was one of the first places I visited many years ago in search of waterfalls to photograph and videotape. This time I returned to capture the falls in HD time lapse. There are two waterfalls in the park; Big Manitou Falls is quite a drop at 165 ft with Little Manitou Falls at (30 ft).
As usual, the clouds were moving in and out of in front of the sun causing a nightmare when it came to editing the images.
On my first visit, this park was closed until April 15th and I really had no idea what to expect when I returned. The park is a nice little oasis in an otherwise farm area. The park has a Frisbee course, picnic area and waterfall that flows into the lake. As usual the water was sediment filled due to the recent heavy rains making the lake quite high keeping me from getting a better front view of the falls.
I was running out of time and memory space as I had spent 5 hours at Red Rock Dells earlier in the day. The sun was really causing me problems as it would pop out in the middle of a 4 minutes series of exposures. You will see quick light flickers throughout the video. Thanks goes to James Killinen for the information on both Red Rock Dells and Mound Creek Park.
On my second visit to this small county park, I finally expected to see plenty water flowing through the rocky dells this time after being disappointed at my last visit. Since the rains had been quite heavy the night before, there was plenty of sediment in the water making it look like Willy Wonka's chocolate river. I wish I had arrived earlier in the day because as the day moved on, the sun started to pop out from behind the clouds. Many times I had to stop completely and wait for 5-10 minutes before I could resume shooting. I used about 2900 images to create this video.
I decided to return to Amnicon State Park and capture is on HD video. I have been to the park a few times before but only chose to shoot photos of the beautiful park. There are 3 main waterfalls, Lower, Upper Falls and Snake Pit Falls with a waterfall name Every Now and Then falls that only flows during higher waters, it was dry during my visit.
The park was full of people cooling off in the rushing waters, it took quite a bit of time and patience to get all of the photos I would need. As the sun started to set, the park became vacant and I was all by myself with the waterfalls.
Since I wasn't able to head out of town on my birthday weekend, so I decided to re-visit Willow River State park on the North side of Hudson Wisconsin. I ended up shooting over 4600 images and using about 4200 in the final video. The file size is almost 200 megs. This time I did not color correct any of the images before I turned them into video clips. The day started out cloudy with a slight rain, but as the day progressed the sun would show itself and that can be seen in a few scenes as a light flicker as the clouds moved in and out during the exposing time.
I had arrived mid-morning and ran into a few walkers along the way. Some just sat down in front of the waterfall with their eyes closed and absorbed the positive ions the falls give off. Throughout the whole 6 hours I was there, I noticed many others doing the same thing. I spent sometime talking to a few of the people that were there, they had some interesting stories. One young man was spending the summer camping because he was getting ready to be sent over to Afghanistan in mid summer. I wished him well.
On my second day driving the Copper Harbor loop in the Keewenaw Peninsula, I stopped at a nice roadside waterfall called Jacob Falls. By now there was very little wind compared to my last stop Eagle River and the scene was very peaceful. What you see in my video is only a small potion of the many waterfalls that you will find as the trail leads back into the forest.
As I took my photographs, folks would stop to take their own pictures and talk to me while my camera was clicking away. I met some nice folks that day to whom I shared my online work.
There is a bakery 100 feet from the falls called Jampot. The wonderful aroma of sugary baked goods was tempting me to finish up quickly so I could buy some gifts and enjoy a well deserved cookie on my part.
I have captured the waterfall on the South Fork River below the swing bridge, but I had never spent any time with the one further upriver. I finally made time after a service call in River Falls WI. I shot 3300 images and used about 3000 of them to create this time-lapse of the falls. I was there for 3.5 hours and during that duration the weather changed many times. I also had to stop taking pictures to let people and dogs pass by me on their way upstream.
I have seen this waterfall on YouTube posted by David Hedquist and felt it would be quite a nice one to capture. It took a little bit of research but I located it and I was not disappointed. It was a crisp Sunday morning with frost still hanging on the tall grass as I hiked along the treeline.
The trail took a quick right into the woods along a ravine to my left, I could hear the falls through the trees. The path got narrower as I approach the waterfall with the still present ravine on my left and a 15 foot drop to the creek on my right. You see the top of the waterfall first as it cascades down the rock slide. the ground was still frozen so the climb down got real scary for a short time, so I sat down and figured a way out of a potential slide to the bottom. I think I will return next year during the summer and catch it in a greener season.
Since I had always wanted to visit the 3 main waterfalls (Manido Falls, Nawadaha Falls and Manabezho Falls) on the Presque Isle River, I headed out early on a bright Sunday morning. Five hours later I parked off of the South Boundary Road bridge and hiked down on the east side of the river. The trails are not groomed on this side of the river as they are in the west side park, so be prepared to step over rocks and roots. With the sun working it's way across the sky and people wandering all over the falls, I had limited time to capture all the images I would need. Five hours later, 16 gigs of images and one dropped camera, I headed back home.
One of the roadside waterfalls on Highway 26 on the north side of Keewenaw County, MI is Eagle River Falls. It is big enough to have been used to power the Lake Superior Safety Fuse Factory. The wind was really strong coming in hard off of the lake as can be seen by the trees whipping around. There is no access to the falls from the park area except the historic bridge you use the view the falls, unless you want to climb down the rock bluff. You can hike up the river from the Superior, but I decided to continue on along the shoreline road to my next waterfall.
Just under the swing bridge on the north side of Glen Park in River Falls, Wisconsin is a nice little waterfall. I have visited it previously quite a few times to photograph it but never spent the time to capture it in motion. The weather that morning had been the best it could have been for winter with the trees covered in frost. Unfortunately, the heat of the city kept the frost away from the falls and the surrounding area
This time lapse took 1872 images to create with 35+ hours of editing time. I increased the speed of the "relaxing" music to better match the faster paced editing and video.
After a service call in Southwestern MN, I decided to swing by Ramsey Falls in Redwood Falls, MN. It took me a few drives around the park before I could locate it. The road leading down to the falls had not been plowed over the winter and I passed it up. Some nice folks guided me in the right direction. It is a single waterfall that divides into two, when the water is higher, back to one again when the water is really high.
It was late in the afternoon and I was lucky enough to catch the golden light on the embankment before the sun set behind the high bluff. This a dangerous waterfall to explore with a significant drop from the rock if you are not careful. As I sat near the edge photographing the falls I could feel the power under me rumbling the granite. Some of the rock on the edge looked like they were ready to break away and splash in the water below.
This was shot with 2200, 16 megapixel photographs compressed down to 20 frames per second to create the video.
This project was a first for me; a time lapse video for a waterfall. I chose Cascade Falls in Osceola, WI because it's easy to climb into the gorge (stairs) and I was in the area doing a service call. I wanted to experiment with the time-lapse feature on my new camera and thought this would let me know it's limitations. I chose between 50-100 shots (image size 4928x3264) per composition with a total of 1085 used still images. I rendered all of the images down to 1080 lines of resolution of video.
The music is from The Ring of Kerry Band and I thank them for the use of their music. I used one of their songs for my previous Cascade waterfall video.
My first waterfall destination on my Fall trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was Upper Silver Falls in Baraga County. The falls are a semi remote waterfall south of L'Anse, MI. The last time I attempted to find the falls there had been a 4 day rain and the "road" was quite washed out. This year I had a bumpy but dry drive into the backwoods. I hiked down the ATV trail towards the river and I could feel the falls underfoot as I approached them. They were magnificent!
It had been drizzling all day with no end in sight, perfect weather for the waterfall shoot. The waterfalls are not easy to capture as they are a complicated series of cascades and steps with beautiful channels swirling around multi-colored rocks and logs.
I ended up using about 5400 images to create this video.
I stepped away from my usual music tone and chose something with more tech to it.
Ogemaw Falls is one of my favorite waterfalls to visit in the U.P. It"s about 100 feet off of a paved road a few miles away from Highway 41. I love the way the water falls off the top edge and cascades down numerous edges of the rocks. Let's talk about how beautiful the water is when is spills into the collection basin before it flow gently over a few final rocks. At that spot, there is a moss covered area about 20 square feet, a great place for a picnic. The water continues to flow downstream into a narrow up against a straight eight foot rock, but nothing as nice as the original falls.
