Elowah Falls

I know that this is a standard shot for all your northerners, but it is a new one for me. I had the pleasure of doing some shooting along the Columbia with David Cobb and Adrian Cline a couple weeks back. It sure helps to go out with people who have local knowledge. In two days I saw more cool stuff in the Gorge than all my other visits combined. Perhaps the coolest thing I saw was Adrian standing waist deep in freezing cold water for about 20 minutes to get the right shot of Punch Bowl Falls. I could only hang for about three minutes before my feet went numb.

Now I'm looking forward to getting up there soon so they can show me some of the really good flower locations.

I had to save this with a jpeg compression of 5 to get it small enough, so it is a little fuzzy. Now that I see it posted it looks like the compression caused it do go dark and lose all shadow detail. Oh well.

When I first opened this I wondered about those shadows but your comments explain all. As someone from the Dry Side, I enjoy all these images. There is no "standard shot". It's either a good comp or it isn't and I like this one. My only nit would be the top of the falls being partially obscured by the tree trunks. The vignetting and general darkness/contrast from the jpeg compression is too bad, but we can still get a good idea what this image is like. Maybe you can try a different technique and post it again.

Man, that image just got darker and more blocked up with every step of the process. The one in the post even looks darker than when I look at it in PS. Anyway, perhaps this version better approximates the full res file? Still had to use a compression setting of 5, but hopefully the shadows have a little more depth.

It was good to meet you Sean and glad you made it over to these falls as well! Some might not like the falls being cut into but this is a tough one too shoot and I personally like this perspective. Minus the shadows being a tad bit dark this is great work.

And I know I will be back to Punch Bowl again to freeze my legs off for another 20 min when the lighting is better!

Keep in touch. Cheers!

Nice shot Sean, get ready for round 2. Havin' fun in the Olympics.

David M. Cobb

So how was the foliage up at Punchbowl? I bet a few weeks away from really popping? Ya got a good comp going on here. I like the second verison better for sure. My minor nit here is that the ferns on the left rockface are blurred.

Nicely composed and i like the second brighter image. Nice job in OP also!