Mt. Magazine Waterfall

I photographed this waterfall outside the entrance to the lodge atop Mt. Magazine, the highest point in Arkansas at 2,753 feet. The waterfall is man-made, but it is so well designed that it is hard to tell it’s not a natural feature. When the predicted clouds finally rolled in, I grabbed my equipment and walked the short distance to the cascade. I had taken only a few shots when the clouds suddenly and unexpectedly broke bathing the scene in bright midday light, which was not ideal lighting for this subject. Fortunately, I remembered I carry a 3-stop neutral density filter in my bag, so I pulled it out and held in front of the lens. The filter reduced the apparent light level on the scene and allowed me to use a longer shutter speed to more effectively blur the flow of water. With my 100-400mm lens, I was able to eliminate any tell-tale signs that this waterfall was anything other than a natural cascade. Using Lightroom, I significantly increased the overall exposure, added contrast, increased the highlights, and darkened the shadows. I then took the image into Photoshop and applied the Detail Extractor filter in Nik Color Efex 4. My settings were 135mm, 0.6 sec, f/22, 100 ISO.

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