Shooting HDR at Clifty Falls, along Ohio River in Madison, IN

I had this week off from work, so I used the opportunity to do a long-delayed trip to southeastern Indiana, where I got to shoot a Hanover College home basketball game and visit "The Point" -- a much touted scenic overlook of the Ohio River on the campus -- but also make a stop at Clifty Falls State Park east of Hanover then continue the drive on east State Road 56 to the riverside community of Madison, Ind.

I came home packed with photographs; I wasn't sure where to start. I wanted to do the basketball game shots, but there were so many of those, and because they were shot indoors (where light is always a challenge) I knew I'd want to do an intensive edit of those. So ... I elected to first process the shots from Clifty Falls and Madison, which I undertook almost entirely as another high-dynamic range (HDR) project.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, HDR is something many photographers turn to for practical reasons when they want to capture a scene with contrasting light conditions -- very bright in one spot, but harsh shadows or shade in another. By melding three differently exposed images -- one overexposed to pick up more detail from the dark area, one underexposed to protect detail from the bright area and one taken with exposure metered as "normal" to derive the scene's primary detail -- a photographer can produce an image culling optimum -- and sometimes stunning -- detail.

Photographers also like to use HDR to enrich detail even under normal lighting conditions. I like the idea of doing so for scenic landscapes and images where I want to emphasize certain moods. It sort of shifts the final image from that of a photograph to a different level of fine art; I've heard some people describe it as something that resembles a painting. I do see and agree that these scenes often do look like that afterward.

The decision to shoot Clifty Falls and Madison as HDR images fell into the second category. Dense clouds blocked out the sun the entire day, so I wanted to enrich the details ... and because these photographs were being captured primarily as landscapes, such as the lead photograph of the small barge nearing the bridge in Madison. I never did see any of the four falls in Clifty, but then, I saw markings to only two of them (Hoffman and Tunnel) along the main thoroughfare; never saw a single marker for Big Clifty or Little Clifty. Perhaps on another trip ...

Along the way, I stopped at the courthouse square in Scottsburg, Ind., the seat of Scott County, which is on State Road 56 right off I-65. Some of the images in this post are from there.

To see a full gallery of images from this shoot, follow this link.

Above and below: At Clifty Falls State Park, a look down and up different sets of rock-based stairs. These are the more tame ones I came across in the park. The most dramatic gradients -- and extremely difficult -- were near the one falls (Hoffman) that I tried to reach. But I stopped short; I was lugging a lot of camera equipment and a tripod, and the radical-elevation steps on some climbs were getting too cumbersome to traverse.

Above and next three below: These shots were taken from the Observation Tower in the southern portion of the park, near the Clifty Inn, a lodging place on the park grounds. Above is the Ohio River, looking upstream, or east.

Above: A vista that, on this day, proved much more striking when viewing after HDR treatment than what I remember seeing with the naked eye. I captured this less than an hour after sunrise. On the other hand, this vista must be breathtaking in the heart of autumn ... and perhaps even in summer.
 

Above: Including smokestacks from the Indiana-Kentucky Electric Co. in a river overlook vista from the Observation Tower.

Above: This vista of the Ohio River behind the trees on the left looks west, downstream, with State Road 56 curving into the horizon on the right. The one disappointment I had in the Observation Tower is that those trees on the left block a clear view of what would be a gorgeous western vista of the river. And if they present this much of an obstacle in winter, when there are no leaves, then the river must be impossible to see most of the year. The leaf colors in autumn would be the one redeeming factor I can think of.

Above: This view across the river into Kentucky is from the park's Lilly Overlook.

Above: This frame of some timber comes along one of the hiking paths, which shows you the dramatic gradients involved. 

The picture above and the next several below were taken along the Ohio River banks on the Indiana side in Madison. This view looks west.

Above: A radical crop of a huge coal-carrrying barge, one of several pieces of river traffic I saw while I was there.

Above: Catching some waves lapping at the shoreline with the Kentucky bluffs in the background. 

Above: I'd seen this yellow barge vessel move downstream without the cargo auxiliary about 15 minutes earlier. It now was pushing the unloaded piece upstream. I held off shooting until I could frame it between the two beams in the foreground.

Above: The same vessel as above, only a little farther upstream on its journey ... and not far from the bridge, where I captured it in the photo at the top of this post.

Above: These gentlemen were relaxing on one of many benches along the park-like setting on the Indiana shoreline.

Above: A monument not far from the Jefferson County courthouse in downtown Madison. 

Above: The commercial district in downtown Madison is filled with many interesting structures reflecting architecture dating to the 19th century. I tried to capture a few of them.

Above: My rotten luck, construction going on around the Jefferson County Courthouse has this fencing up to keep away pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks. But I wanted a shot or two of the structure ... 

   

Above: The Scott County Courthouse in Scottsburg has an interesting front, back and east side. Above is a gazebo situated on the back side.

Above: On the courthouse's east side, these white rails in the stairway fence juxtaposed with the building's brick facade begged for a photo exploring patterns. A sunny day might have done better justice to the rails' true white color.

Above: On the courthouse's front side, there is an extensive war memorial devoted to soldiers who served in all of the country's major conflicts dating to the Civil War.

Cataract Falls, Take 2

Yesterday's post about my shoot at Cataract Falls concentrated almost entirely on the recreation area's main attraction: the waterfalls. The images of the young tree trunks in that post, however, should have suggested there is more to be found there than just water and falls. But hey, shouldn't any photo outing entail looking for more than just the obvious -- especially if you have the time to explore? I think so.

Today's post will concentrate mostly on the rock and stone formations along the banks of Mill Creek in Owen County, Ind., where the falls are located. I'll include a few other images not used in the previous post as well. Leading off -- at the top -- is a photo treated in high-dynamic range (HDR) software, a melding of three images into one to extract as much detail as possible in the final digital picture.

To see a full gallery of images from the Feb. 12, 2001, shoot at Cataract Falls, follow this link.

Above and below: Single-image frames of the same area; the bottom reflects a slight zoom in. The frame above is a single-frame image of the HDR-treated photo that leads off today's post at the top.

Above and below: Prints left in the snow by a four-legged visitor along the bank of Mill Creek near Upper Falls. Both images are HDR treatments; the one below transformed a drab looking boulder that would have been incidental in a single-frame shot into a striking, colorful primary subject of this HDR conversion.

Above: An exercise in using HDR treatment for a back-lighted subject, in this case ... some trees. The sun was right behind the thick-trunked tree in the foreground.

Above and two below: A sycamore tree along the Mill Creek bank that caught my eye because the sun was behind me, enriching the blue in the background sky.

Above: The inside of the Smith truss covered bridge -- like most old structures with public access -- is riddled with graffiti. This entry -- which someone obviously took some time to compose -- was one that caught my eye.

Above: This view of Mill Creek was taken from one of the three window-like openings in the covered bridge over Upper Falls.

Above and below: Almost the same scene; the one below was processed in HDR software, the one above as a single frame.

 

Above and below: Making the best out of shots shooting into the sun. 

Above: The boulder you see in the creek on the right is the same one in the image several shots up, taken from the bridge and with the sun in a more favorable position -- behind me. 

Above and below: HDR views of Mill Creek, above a long-range vista of a piece of tree debris; below, a tight shot.

   

Above: This sphere, strung to a rope of some sort, loomed over the parking lot at the Upper Falls. I can only guess that it might be some sort of air travel guide.

First-ever trip to Cataract Falls

 

My first trip to Cataract Falls State Recreation Area in Owen County, Ind., on Saturday was another opportunity to explore high-dynamic range (HDR) photography, as the sun shined bright, presenting many scenes to photograph that contained contrasting light, ideal situations to employ HDR.

As mentioned in my previous post, HDR enables a photographer to take multiple frames of the same scene, using different exposures in each -- one of which is metered at normal exposure, while the others are either overexposed or underexposed -- and then melding the images in post-processing to obtain optimum detail in the final image. It's the photographer's discretion to determine how many frames -- and how far over- and underexposed he or she wants to shoot those. My limited experience has steered me to keep the exposure value differential relatively close (e.g., -1,0,+1, for a three-exposure bracket) when the contrast in light is not severe, and to widen the interval values (-2,0,+2) as the light contrast intensifies.

In addition to the all-day sun, temperatures warmed to the 40s in Indiana for the first time since Jan. 1. I went to Cataract Falls with two fellow photo club members. Cataract Falls' two sets of falls on Mill Creek cascade a combined total of 86 feet, making it the largest falls in Indiana. The largest single drops in any of the falls cascades are 20 and 18 feet at Upper and Lower Falls, respectively.

Cataract has a sort of sibling falls, called Little Sister Falls, situated very near the Lower Falls. Unlike the Upper and Lower falls on the day we visited, Little Sister Falls was frozen over. The one angle to grab pictures of that attraction -- access to it in the winter is by a path that ends on a kind of overlook bluff about three-quarters of the distance downhill of the falls -- was looking almost directly into the sun when we were there. So we battled back-lighting to grab any images of it; I expanded my bracketed exposure values in hopes of grabbing more detail in the HDR process. It probably helped, but only marginally, I think.

The images you see here are from that day's shoot; to view a more complete gallery of images from Cataract Falls, follow this link.

Above and below: Single-frame (non-HDR) long- and mid-range views of the Upper Falls. The frame below was shot at a relatively show shutter speed (1/40) at f/16 (ISO-100) to blur the cascading water.

 

Above and top of post: HDR frames of the Upper Falls, the above encompassing more distance than the ones higher up. The one leading off the post is one of my favorites from the shoot; the perspective is about 50-60 yards to the right of the one above, and captures some dynamic color on the ledge portion of the Upper Falls' 20-foot drop.
 

Above: a shed in the median near the access to Cataract Falls, with a residential home in the background. On the day we were there, the shed's color was a dark, burgundy-like color. Shooting it in HDR put some pop into the color.

Above and three images below: Shots of the 140-foot-long Smith truss bridge over Mill Creek at the Upper Falls. For a history of the bridge, follow this link.

Above: Intentionally off-angle for creative effect. I'm not saying it definitely works; just sayin' I tried something a little different.

Above: The one exterior shot I grabbed that didn't get marred by sun flare. I took this as we first approached the bridge. The sun was at about 1 o'clock in the sky, and I tried several angles from this side. While this was the only one without flare, the sun's brightness wiped out the bridge's roof line. I had made a mental note at the time to try to grab the bridge from the right side when we finished shooting the interior, but I spaced it. Another club member, Roxanne, did not. She got a nice shot of the bridge from the right side. 

 Above and below: Shots of the Lower Falls, both in HDR.

Above: A single frame (non-HDR) shot of an iced-over section of the Lower Falls. This section doesn't get nearly the amount of sunlight that the sections above receive.

Above: I took shots of this same view in HDR, but I ended up liking this, a single frame, a little better. This is Mill Creek leading up to the large 18-foot drop at the Lower Falls. 

Above and below: An area off to the side of the Lower Falls was an eye-opener with these stripped, young tree branches reminding me of a post-fire forest. While I did bracket my exposures for these shots with the intent to convert to HDR, I felt the single-frame version much better represented the stark vista I saw when I came across these. I converted several to monochrome, enhancing the desolate feel. One of those b/w conversions appears two pictures below.

Above: A single frame shot of the Lower Falls.

Above: An HDR-treatment of a scene of a structure at the Upper Falls. I didn't get close to this to explore it further (it was on an incline from where I was standing, and the footing wasn't very good yet), but that sort of looks like an old well pump in the middle.

Above: Inside the covered bridge at the Upper Falls, where fellow club members Connie and Roxanne are captured in a monochrome conversion silhouette.

Above: Evidence that the hiking trail is used quite a bit, even in the unfriendliest of weather.

 Above: A look at the frozen-over Little Sister Falls.

Above and below: HDR frames of the Lower Falls from different perspectives. 

Above: This vista of Mill Creek downstream from the Lower Falls was one I wanted to get, but it was difficult to find an unobstructed vantage point. This perspective, "peeking" through branches along the hiking trail, was the best I could find without impediments.