Benton County
- Golda Meir.
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With my wife's pregnancy and our move from California to Arkansas, I have had very little time to explore the new area that we call home. Now that the baby is almost three months old and that we have some help in the form of grandparents, we got a chance to get out and go on a small hike. We chose to see a waterfall nearby called the Tanyard Creek falls. It is not considered a major waterfall in the Natural State, but it is very close by and the wife needed a break.
We had some unusual amount of rain this year and an early frost, so the fall colors were a bit of a miss, but the rain turned a trickle into a fairly massive cascade. As we were walking towards the falls, I noticed a sudden pop of color across the stream, and thankfully there were some interesting rock forms to be used as foreground interest along with some interesting cascades.
- Stanley Kubrick.
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I have always been curious about waterfall photography. I still remember seeing a beautiful long exposure shot of a nearby waterfall and think that it was the most beautiful photo that I have ever seen. So when my dad gave me an old Pentax film camera, I couldn’t wait to shoot the small waterfall near my home. The only problem, I didn't have any film or enough money to process the film. So the wait lasted six more months before I managed to get everything in order.
I still remember heading there with my then best friend and impressing him by setting up the camera and clicking away, and it felt good. My thinking was simple, and I know the settings of the long exposure shot. I needed exposure to last a couple of seconds, and magic should happen. I remember the giddiness with which I went collect the processed image and the surprise when the image looked like a blank sheet of paper rather than the beautiful image of a waterfall. My disappointment was palpable, prompting the darkroom developer to come out and have a chat. He asked me what the subject and confessed to him what I had done. He patiently explained to me about the exposure triangle and how, by manipulating the exposure time manually and not compensating for it in any other way, changed the equilibrium of the triangle. I am forever in debt for that counsel. It put me on a path of learning, but life got busy, and photography took a backseat. I didn’t get to perfect my waterfall photography until much later. More on that later.
Today’s shot is of the Tanyard creek falls in full swing after a couple of days of rain. I haven’t seen the falls in low water, but from images that I have seen, it looked rather wispy and thin, but during this visit, we got to see it as a proper cascade.
- Samuel Johnson.
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Earlier during a post, I mentioned the importance of exploring one's nearby areas as the subject for landscape photography. In this post, I wanted to go a little bit more on that subject and also discuss the importance of repeated visits. I currently live near an urbanized area of a southern state, which is largely rural. With a new child and increased responsibilities of work, my ability to plan and execute long road trips is rather limited. So I knew it was important for us to explore the interesting spots around us.
One such location was tanyard creek, which is very close to my house and is pretty urbanized. It's not a fancy location but has some developed trails and is a quick step away from my home. We usually go here for a quick hike and I had some plans on how different conditions will affect the composition. Today's shot is of the Tanyard Creek a day after a storm passed through the area. The usually serene stream had changed into a cascading wild river that day. Suddenly new compositions thwarted to come to light. This ridgeline while interesting, is difficult to shoot when that water level is normal. But with the high-water level, the water level rose to the rocky ridge and the motion in the water perfectly complimented the texture on the rock, making the composition work.
This is why it is important to revisit the same location and think a bit about how different weather conditions could affect the composition. It’s a little hard to switch to this mode of thinking, but once you do, you will be surprised by the effect it has on your photography.
Harris Covered Bridge near Wren Oregon in Feb.
- Leo Rosten.
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I have been hearing about Tanyard Creek since the day we moved to Northwest Arkansas. When neighbors learned about our interest in hiking and trails, this small but beautiful trail was one of the first suggestions. It took me a while to get around to actually doing the trail and to visit the highlight of the hike, the beautiful tanyard falls. Unfortunately fall foliage didn’t live up to expectations this year and the persistent rain transformed the gentle creek in to a raging torrent on the day of our visit.
As we were coming back from the main attraction, I noticed this crack in the sheet rocks where the creek was taking a curve. As you probably would have guessed by now, I am a sucker for foreground interests. So, we scampered down to the creek from the trail and set up the shot with the crack as the foreground interest and the rushing creek as the background subject. Hopefully, it came out good.
Thanks to all Phoide contributors to Benton County!
Most notably Patrick Clancy, Sandeep Thomas and Bonnie Moreland.