Date Taken: 01/21/2014
Location: Soco Falls, near milepost 456
A wintry view of Soco Falls, located on US 19, a mile or so from the Parkway
Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: Tokina AT-x Pro 12-24
Focal Length: 24mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1.3 seconds
Aperture: f/18
Filters: Circular polarizer
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: Soco Falls, while not directly on the Blue Ridge Parkway, is still adjacent to it, only a mile or two south on US Highway 19 from the interchange at Soco Gap. Also, it’s one of the few Parkway attractions still accessible during winter, as the Parkway between Cherokee and North Carolina Highway 191 itself is typically closed during the winter months. On Tuesday, the snow had begun to pile up at the higher elevations, and US 19 was becoming more difficult to navigate, so I had to act fast in capturing the popular falls. I set up at the top of the second waterfall to the right for safety (Soco Falls is a convergence of two streams, and the hike to the base is difficult at best) and composed the image with the first waterfall to the left, and the icy rock outcropping to the right for a wintry contrast. I used a standard circular polarizer for slowing my shutter speed to give the impression of movement in the waterfall. In post-processing, I cropped the image slightly to tighten and balance the composition, made a color correction which removed some of the haze in the original RAW image, and removed a small, pesky branch that had creeped into the top left portion of the image, and would have been a distraction had I kept it there. Being a very picky, purist sort of guy in terms of keeping things as close as possible to what I saw, it’s very rare that I make an alteration like that to any of my images, no matter how small, as I tend to be a Photoshop minimalist – but this however was one of those cases, as it was impossible to for me pull the branch out of the frame physically before shooting.
For More Information
- Additional photographs by Solitary Traveler Photography
- Categories where this photo is found: Waterfalls