Eastern Hemlock roots

The tentacular roots of an eastern hemlock tree, Tsuga canadensis, clutch a sandstone boulder at Old Man's Cave. Hemlocks do well on thin soil over rocky substrates, and over long time spans undoubtedly help break rock down by fracturing it, and calving big chunks from cliffs when ice and windstorms bring large trees down. The nooks and crannies within the root network also make great foraging areas for winter wrens. Hocking County, Ohio, yesterday.

Hocking Hills: Photo ops galore!

The gorgeous upper falls at Old Man's Cave in the picturesque Hocking Hills of Hocking County, Ohio. This image was created on February 20, 2018. I shot it with my landscape workhorse, the tripod-mounted Canon 5DSR, at f/16 and ISO 100. The image is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) blend of five image, with only the shutter speed varying between shots. HDR tactics are a great way to even out radical shifts from light to dark in the same scene, and is a fabulous way to up your landscape photography game.

I made this image during one of Debbie DiCarlo's and my field-based photo workshops, and we hit the lucky jackpot on this weekend. The reasonable expectation was for snow, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Instead, we got a warmish drizzly weekend. The upside of that was high water, pleasing flow in all the streams and over every falls (of which there are many). Our group was able to create scores of nice images without freezing, and as an added bonus, it scarcely rained when we were in the field, but at about all other times.

Debbie and I are repeating this workshop, this time during the weekend of January 16-18, 2019. Odds are high it will be a snowy, wintry photographer's dreamscape, but as we see with the image above, one can't really go wrong, rain or snow, warmth or cold. It'll be a good time, and a great opportunity to learn about HDR techniques, composition, lighting, and all manner of other stuff photographic. Also, there will be plenty of interesting smaller subjects, such as evergreen ferns, lichens, a great diversity of mosses, cool tree bark patterns and much more. All great macrophotography practice.

For complete workshop details, GO HERE. We are also offering a Black Friday savings of 10% between November 23-26 on this and all other multi-day workshops. Details on all of the 2019 photo workshops can be found RIGHT HERE.

Hocking Hills redux

A set of hand-hewn rock steps exits a tunnel in the sandstone cliffs of the Hocking Hills at Old Man's Cave. This area is renowned for its beauty, in Ohio and far beyond.

I'm always in a game of catch-up when it comes to sorting and filing photos. I generally take more images than is easily dealt with in a timely manner. So, over the past few days I finally got around to archiving photographs from a wonderful photographic workshop that Debbie DiCarlo and I led last February. It was the better part of three days, in the Hocking Hills. We visited many of the iconic hotspots, ostensibly to photograph icy and snowy landscapes. Mother Nature had other plans, and the weather was unseasonably warm and rainy.

This unexpected meteorological twist worked to our advantage. The streams and waterfalls were perfectly filled, and the wetness created wonderful saturation of colors. We lucked out in that the rain usually fell at night or at other times when we weren't out in it.

Water gushes through a gap near the upper falls at Old Man's Cave. The old stone bridges in this area fit perfectly with the environment, and if they ever replace them I hope it is with similar structures.

A big sandstone cliff hems in a stream flowing through a picturesque hemlock gorge. The conditions and locales were perfect for learning about landscape photography.

Cedar Falls, rendered in black and white. One advantage - huge one, photographically - of visiting the Hocking Hills during midweek in winter is that the crowds of people are nearly absent. Thus, we were able to capture scenes of incredibly popular tourist destinations, like this one, with no people cluttering the shot.

Hidden Falls, just below Cedar Falls. This is about as wintry as things looked while our group was there. Not having to deal with freezing temperatures was nice, and the perfect water levels in the streams couldn't be beat. Lots of ice and snow is great too, it just creates a completely different ambience. Chances are, our next workshop here in January (16 thru 18) will feature snow and amazing ice formations.

The colorful stone walls of Rock House, one of the most spectacular sandstone formations in this region, as seen through a VERY long exposure (it's quite dark inside).

We of course tried our hand at sunsets, as we nearly always do when the skies and cloud cover cooperates. This is Lake Logan, just minutes from our hotel base camp.

If you are interested in next year's workshop to Hocking Hills - or any of the others - we'd love to have you. We will only take a maximum of ten people, and several have already signed on, so if you're thinking about it, might be good to pull the trigger fairly soon.

Details about all of our photographic workshops, and they're all going to be good, can be found RIGHT HERE.