Our second day at Devil’s Den State Park, which was our first and only full day, yielded what is probably my favorite image of the trip. But, the day wasn’t without some entertaining moments.
I had spotted this scene earlier in the day when my wife, dog, and I had spontaneously walked down one of the park trails. When we had left our cabin, the sun was shining brightly, and I had no idea we would be going down the trail, so I had left all my camera equipment behind.
But, looking back at it, I’m not so sure it was a bad thing. Without my equipment, I didn’t feel any pressure to make photographs. I was able to just look around, observe my surroundings, and identify opportunities like this.
Our first entertaining moment came when we had to cross a small suspension bridge, and my dog generally doesn’t like bridges. He would go up a couple of steps, see the bridge, and head right back down those steps. After several minutes of coaxing and cajoling and with me standing behind him, he put a couple of feet on the bridge and. . .froze. After a few more minutes of coaxing and encouragement, he finally walked across. Actually, he didn’t walk so much as did some hybrid walk/belly crawl across it. But, hey, he did it, and I didn’t have to carry him across.
We continued down the trail, and I saw several scenes that I thought would make for nice photographs. My wife had her phone with her, so I had her take quick snapshots so I could find the spots later when I came back.
As we came to the end of the trail, I noticed this scene: Lee Creek surrounded by trees showing off their Autumn color. When I saw this, I knew, without a doubt, I would be back later, and I would have my camera with me.
We reversed course and went back the way we came. Of course, that meant we had to go back over the bridge, and that’s when the second moment of entertainment happened. As we approached the bridge, we saw a young woman and her very small child crossing the bridge. The bridge wasn’t really wide enough for us to pass, so we decided to wait until she was off the bridge before we started across.
She finally reached the end, and my wife started across. I waited for my dog to go, but he had a completely different idea. Even though he eventually went across the bridge on his own the first time, this time he decided there was no way in heck he was going across by himself. There was no amount of coaxing, cajoling, or pleading that was going to get him across. He left me no choice. I had to pick up an 85 pound dog and carry him across a 100 foot bridge. Fortunately, there were several people waiting to make their way across, and I can only imagine what they must have been thinking. As Maximus said in Gladiator, “Are you not entertained?”
We headed back to our cabin to rest. The clouds were predicted to build back throughout the remainder of the day, and I decided I would wait to go back later in the afternoon after the clouds reappeared.
As predicted, the clouds returned, and we all headed back to where I saw this scene. This time, though, we drove to the parking area at the other end of the trail. We all got out, I put the dog’s leash on him, grabbed my equipment, and headed down to the creek. My dog, on the other hand, decided he’d had enough walking for the day and would leave the parking area.
Getting to the edge of the creek, I looked for a good spot to set up where I had an unobstructed view of the scene. Finding the right location, I set up my tripod and began framing the composition. There was a vehicle bridge that cut across the creek, so I zoomed my lens until the bridge was just outside the frame. I wasn’t sure exactly how far away everything was from me, so I used a mid-range aperture, f/18, to ensure I had sufficient depth of field to render everything sharp. Then, I pressed the shutter button.
My dog made it very clear that he’d had enough of this little adventure. So, I quickly made my way down the trail to find the other shots I had seen earlier. After photographing those locations, we all got back in the car, went back to the cabin, and called it a day. The next morning, we got up, packed up our stuff, and headed for home.