The Buffalo River recently reopened after being closed for a few weeks because of the pandemic. Realizing it had been a couple of years since I had last visited the area, I decided to take a trip to Tyler Bend. Tyler Bend is in the river’s middle district and is about a twenty minute drive north of Marshall, Arkansas.
To maximize the time I would have to photograph before the sun rose too high and began causing contrast problems, I planned on arriving on location just before dawn, which was to occur a few minutes before 5:30 am. Getting on the road by 2:45 am, everything was going according to schedule.
It was still quite dark when I reached Tyler Bend right at 5:00. Parking my truck, I waited for dawn to break. However, when the clock hit 5:45 and the sky was still overcast, I realized the weather was not going to be what I had expected. Instead of the day being clear and sunny, it was going to be foggy and cloudy.
I actually considered the overcast conditions to be an advantage because they create soft, even lighting that reduces extreme contrast. However, you have to be careful of including the sky in the picture because it will record as a blank, textureless, distracting expanse that will be devoid of interest.
Walking down to the river, I discovered another problem. All the rain we’ve had over the last few months had raised the level of the river. In fact, in the many times I have been there, I don’t know that I had ever seen the water at that level. Because of the higher water level, many of the spots I wanted to go to weren’t accessible without having to wade through the river. This was not something I had even remotely considered.
Getting in my truck, I made my way back to the main highway and traveled about a mile to another area known as Grinders Ferry. When I arrived, I was surprised by the number of people who had campsites in the area. I guess there were a lot of people glad the river was open again and decided to get out and enjoy it.
Walking along the river bank, I noticed this scene. I lowered the tripod all the way to the ground. With a 16-35mm lens attached, I positioned the camera about two feet from the rock near the center of the frame. This made the rock appear disproportionately large in the scene. I used an aperture of f/22 to maximize depth of field to ensure the entire image was sharp.
Opening the file in Lightroom, I tried several things, but I just couldn’t get anything I really liked. Opening the image in Photoshop, I used Nik’s Silver Efex Pro software to convert the picture to black and white, and everything started falling into place. Then, using Photoshop’s ACR filter, I added a graduated filter to further reduce the brightness of the sky.
Normally, I shoot both a horizontal and a vertical shot of the scene while I am there. I have no idea why, but, this time, I didn’t do that for this image. So, the final change I made to the photograph was to crop the image to change the orientation from a horizontal to a vertical perspective. This created the final picture I was looking to make.