Cucumber Falls in the winter

Cucumber Falls is a really cute little waterfall in the Ohiopyle state park. This park, in the bottom southwest corner of Pennsylvania has set of large river waterfalls, white water kayaking and rafting, and this small waterfall that cascades over a ridge into a bowl carved out of the rocks. I visited it in early March after some cold days and was thrilled to see that I could, first of all, get down to the waterfall and onto the rocks surrounding it, and second, there was some amazing ice shapes formed by the freezing water.

I’ve talked before about having to make choices about what the final image will look like and particularly what feelings it creates in the mind of the viewer, and this is a perfect case in point. The camera doesn’t really know what the overall shade of the image should be – it literally wants to make everything average out to a plain grey color. But what color should this be? Firstly, it is in shade – the sun was shining but it was over the edge of the waterfall casting the whole area into shadow. Light was coming from the sky rather than any direct illumination.

This is probably as close to “natural” light as I could get. I made sure that the white areas where the water is hitting the pool were pure white without any particular color cast (which assumes that the water is itself clear and not colored by dirt and mud!). But, to be honest, this feels a little wrong to me. Yes, it is a sunny day – you can see the sun on the leaves above the waterfall, but there is also ice about. Ice happens on cold days and this feels just too warm!

I toned down the “color temperature” a little and got this:

This feels better. This is more what I saw and felt like when I was photographing it – chilly! Similarly, when I focus a bit closer on the water cascading into the pool, I can create something that feels like a warm day following some pretty cold ones:

Or I can create a much moodier and darker image that I personally prefer:

However, the customer is always right and so I included both treatments in my store! All my prints are available with a 30-day money back guarantee here in my store.