Laural Creek Tributary Of The Gauley River Gauley River National Recreation Area West Virginia What was hands down one of the coolest photographic subjects for me was on a tributary of the Gauley River at an unnamed falls on Laurel Creek in West Virginia. The hike down to the falls, although fairly short, was really steep, loaded with loose gravel and pushed me beyond my safety comfort zone but, wow, was it worth it. A beautiful towering waterfall with a massive double swirl in the splash pool and several great friends behind their lenses along the pools edge. Good times, I must say!
Uppermost Falls Marr Branch New River Gorge National River West Virginia For years now I've been trying to shoot the Uppermost Waterfall on Marr Branch along Fayette Station Road in West Virginia's New River Gorge and finally I got one I liked on my trip there this past June. What makes this waterfall so difficult to shoot, in my opinion, is part of it is under the rhododendron canopy and the other part is in an exposed open canopy making for some serious high contrast situations even on a cloudy day. Having decided to forego the decent down to the waterfall on Wolf Creek myself and good friend Bryan Janosick chose to head further up the road and visit Marr Branch. I really wanted to visit the taller falls further downstream from this falls but since we were here we went ahead and spent some time shooting it. Having seen the sketchy roadside decent to the larger falls I had no intentions of going that way and instead we decided to explore another option across the creek as we followed a faint path along the cliff side. Eventually the cliff side gave way to a steep but manageable slope of soft soil and decomposing tree matter and we began to make our way down. Bryan went first and I made it about 1/2 way down when I stopped and began to assess the landscape and I shortly realized that it would be a waste of time to go down. The wind generated from the towering waterfall had every leaf dancing around like crazy and since it was approaching sunset any shot we tried to take would just look like a blur of green. So we headed back the way we came and hurried up to the car to make a bee line for Beauty Mountain in hopes to capture a lovely sunset.
Mash Fork Falls Mash Fork Camp Creek State Park West Virginia One of my favorite first time falls I visited in West Virginia was Mash Fork Falls located in Camp Creek State Park. I'd been to the park many times but every visit was during the dry season in fall so we've always skipped over it. There we so many angles to shoot this falls from and we all had a great time shooting here, simply perfect shooting conditions. This was one of my favorite compositions.
