ku # 650-53 ~ looking down, not up at Taughannock Falls

Stream bed pool below Taughannock Falls • click to embiggen
Stream bed below Taughannock Falls • click to embiggenTo be perfectly honest I found the 3/4 mile walk along the trail to Taughannock Falls to be considerably more interesting than the falls itself. That was due in part to the fact that the water level was rather low so the stream bed was very exposed in spots which revealed interesting shapes/patterns, colors, detritus, geological features / details, and the like.

That said, some might get the "insider" joke, photography-wise, that is part of the triptych - the picture on the left is my take on the ubiquitous / cliche-ridden / done-to-death / hope-I-never-see-another-one pictures of the moving rocks at death Valley's Racetrack Playa.

man & nature # 271 ~ dumb animals?

Browsing Old Forge residents ~ Adirondacks - Old Forge, NY • click to embiggenSpotting deer in and around villages and towns here in the Adirondacks is not that unusual. That said, these deer and about 7-8 of their relatives seem to have taken up permanent residency on Main St. in the central Adirondack village of Old Forge.

Main St. in Old Forge is also a section of the primary, in fact, the only highway that traverses the Adirondacks. Consequently, on my 100s of trips through the park, passing through Old Forge is just part of the trip. I been through there 100s of times, both night and day, and the number of times that I have seen groups of deer - at times as many as 8-10 deer - just browsing on Main St. is just down right weird.

This picture was made around 9AM last Saturday just before I went into the diner for my wide-and-fat short stack (see civilized ku # 263 below). The deer were just browsing and paid little attention to passersby. The somewhat humorous thing about this is that it is the middle of deer season and these deer seem to have discovered that the safest place to be is right out in the open on Main St. where, quite obviously, no hunting is allowed.

man & nature # 267-70 ~ roadside attractions

Aluminum storm door on weathered structure • click to embiggen
Deer boar hunts / ostrich/emu farm ~ Adirondacks - Otter Lake, NY • click to embiggenEven though my weekend roadtrip picturing objective was Taughannock Falls, I certainly knew that I would make as many other pictures as possibilities presented themselves along the way. As it turned out, I took advantage of those possibilities only between the hours of 7:30AM - 3:30PM on Saturday. My intention was to not only picture my way to Rochester on Saturday but to then picture my way back from there to Au Sable Forks on Sunday.

There was no picture making on Sunday due to a long lunch with Paul Maxim and, consequently, a late start back to Au Sable Forks. On the ride back I was thinking about my Saturday picture making and, for some reason, my conclusion was that I had not made all that many pictures. However, after transferring my picture files from Saturday to the digital darkroom and starting my initial processing, I ended up with about 70 pictures worth processing.

Many of these pictures, in fact, most of these pictures ended up as triptych presentations. With the exception of the triptych found in the ku # 645-49 entry, none of the eventual groupings were intentionally created.

This is nothing new for me. I tend by nature to explore a given referent from differing POVs, not so much to find the "right" POV but rather to tell a more complete story about the subject at hand. Inevitably, this picturing MO ends up leading to, at the processing stage of things, the unintentional creation of diptychs and triptychs.

So, stayed tuned, there a quite a few more Saturday, November 14th triptychs to come. And, within a week or so, I'll be putting on offer a Saturday, November 14th POD book with an accompanying 15 print folio.

ku # 645-49 ~ the focus of my curiosity

View from the Taughannock Falls overlook ~ just north of Ithaca, NY • click to embiggen
Taughannock Falls~ just north of Ithaca, NY • click to embiggenA big part of my past weekend wanderlust was instigated by a number of recent entries like this by Paul Maxim (on his blog) that feature New York Finger Lakes Region waterfalls.

Over the years, and in passing (as opposed to planning), I have seen a very few of these waterfalls. After all, easy-access spectacular natural places are most often teeming with people and crowds just ain't my thing when trying to enjoy / appreciate nature anymore than it is when trying to enjoy / appreciate, as I did recently, great Art like David - even though I was in a museum it felt more like I was at a carnival.

In any event, I was kind of on a mission to get to and picture Taughannock Falls which is located on NY's southern tier close to the PA border. Taughannock Falls is probably the most spectacular of all the Finger Lake falls. It's a 215' drop which is 33' higher than Niagara Falls making it one of the highest falls in the US east of the Rocky Mts.

My desire to picture the falls was inflamed by a curiosity that I had to see if I would see it and its environs in manner different from that as presented in a zillion pictures I have seen of the falls.

The fact of that matter is that, unless you are willing to break a few rules, your POVs of the falls are extremely limited. So, to avoid that end, I broke a rule - I got down to the riverbed and proceeded beyond the DON"T YOU DARE GO HERE signs and got under the footbridge that crosses the river just below the falls (see the top picture). There I was able to capture the shallow DOF view presented here -

View from under the Taughannock Falls footbridge ~ just north of Ithaca, NY • click to embiggen

It's not exactly an earth-shattering landmark picture. It is a bit different from the "regular" pictures one sees of this place and I am reasonably happy with that but ... if I were to present just one picture of the falls, it would be the center image from the above triptych. But, that said, why limit myself to just one picture? Itaque, the triptych, which I think starts to say something a bit more complete about the place - the genius being in the detail(s), after all.

PS - my impression of Taughannock Falls is much like that of Oscar Wilde's regarding Niagara Falls - it's nice enough, but ...

“It would be more impressive if it flowed the other way”.

This quote is courtesy of Paul Maxim, the former Landscapist Contrarian. I met Paul on my weekend journey and we had a very enjoyable lunch during which we did not argue about truth, reality, or statistics. And, PS to Paul, the contrarian slot is still available.

civilized ku # 263 ~ short and stout

A so-called short stack ~ Old Forge, NY • click to embiggenYou know that you live in the middle of nowhere just south of the Canadian border when you drive 120 miles after dark and you only see 12 other cars on the road and the only place you have to stop is at a US Border Patrol road block / check point and prove that you are not a terrorist.

That said, the next morning I stopped at a small-town diner for a "light" breakfast - a breakfast sandwich and a "short stack" of pancakes. Imagine my surprise when the short stack turned out to be short but as wide as a full-sized dinner plate and a little over a 1/2 inch thick. Very, very delicious but "light" it was not.

civilized ku # 262 ~ while the cat's away ....

M&M Diner ~ Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggenThe wife is away for the weekend so I'm going on a road trip down to/through the central Adirondacks in pursuit of pictures - primarily more man +/- nature pictures but, as is my normal MO, I'll be open to any picturing possibilities. Maybe I'll even get in a little golf.

man & nature # 266 ~ chilly nights and warm(ish) days

A very frosty morning • click to embiggen

man +/- nature # 4 ~ the Jay Range

man +/- nature # 4 • click to embiggenThe beat goes on re: man +- nature and I must admit that leaving the house with a specific picturing intent feels a bit strange. Nevertheless, I'm starting to get with the picturing program.

That said, I am still wrestling with the presentation, re: the graphic elements. I have eliminated the "?" and I have reduced the size of the "+/-" but I still not certain that the graphics are "right".

As always, opinions and comments are appreciated.