Waterfalls galore!

I just returned from a wonderful excursion to the beautiful Hocking Hills of southeastern Ohio. This region is a gem, and is richly endowed with stunning rock formations, streams, forests, and waterfalls.

For the better part of three days, Debbie DiCarlo and I led a photography workshop in which we visited some of the iconic Hocking Hills features - and some little known jewels. Debbie and I have a full slate of interesting workshops for 2018, and I invite you to check them out RIGHT HERE. We keep groups small, to ensure that everyone sees and shoots everything we find, and to better work with people on composition and technique. You can be assured we find lots of COOL THINGS, big and small.

We had planned this week's excursion long ago, and had given it the reasonable title of "Winter Wonderland", figuring that mid-February would bring ice and snow. While the Hocking Hills is gorgeous when clad in the frostings of winter, it also shines when wet. And wet is what we got. Temperatures were unseasonable, ranging from the 40's into the 70's. Lucky for us, the rains occurred largely at night and we dealt with little of the wet stuff when out shooting images.

Following are few quick edits of some shots that offer a glimpse into the grandeur of the Hocking Hills. Most of our participants had not seen these places, at least for a long time, and it was fun to share them and work with everyone to help them photographically capture their beauty.

As always, click the photo to enlarge

The lower falls at Old Man's Cave. I had never seen this falls looking so good, with a near perfect volume of water. And we had the place to ourselves, which is not often the case at this popular locale.

Majestic Ash Cave, one of the most impressive recess caves in the Hocking Hills. Walking into this place is akin to entering a mystical cathedral of rock - visually stunning, and great fun to try and capture with a camera.

The upper end of the gorge at Conkles Hollow. I had never seen it like this. There had been rain all the preceding night, which fortunately for us had faded to a drizzle by morning. Mother Nature had laid down enough water to send torrents gushing over the ledges and into the gorge. Normally there is just a trickle of water lazily cascading over these cliffs - nothing like the rushing flumes we found on this day.

A raging river appears to burst from the rocks at the upper end of the Conkles Hollow gorge. This water wonderland doesn't last long. I'd say one has only a few hours following a hard rain to see these high water flows. The watershed that feeds the hollow is small, and the water dissipates quickly.

A six-spotted fishing spider peers curiously at your narrator with its many eyes. This is one of the cool things we stumbled across, and nearly everyone overcame arachnophobia to practice macro work. On this foray, the spectacular waterfalls trumped nearly all else, though, and that's what we mostly focused on.

Rushing waterfalls

We had a decent amount of rain towards the end of last week, and I figured that water flow in our creeks and streams would be just about right last Saturday. I had long been wanting to shoot images of some waterfalls in west-central Ohio, but for optimal imagery the water volume should not be too little, nor too much. And is it turned out, three of the four falls were just about spot on. The fourth, Charleston Falls, did not have as much water as I would have liked for some reason, but nonetheless the rock formation looked stunning.

Although circumstances do not allow it, I would love to go re-shoot these falls tomorrow morning. Since the relative balminess of last weekend, when I made the following images, temperatures have nosedived. It is about 7 F as I write this. These waterfalls should be spectacular ice sculptures by now, and will have taken on an entirely new look.

All of these waterfalls are in Miami County, and details about each, including location, can be found by consulting The Google.

The West Milton Cascades. This hidden gem is tucked away smack in the middle of the little village of West Milton. One would be hard pressed to find a more scenic falls in Ohio.

Ludlow Falls. This one lacks the elaborate complexity of the West Milton Cascades, but (for Ohio) is a fairly large and powerful falls, and quite impressive. A visual handicap is the State Route 48 bridge, which was, quite stupidly I might add, built right over the top of the falls. Thus one must take pains to compose photographs so as to exclude the bridge.

Greenville Falls. The land around this one is owned by the Miami County Park District. Streamside cliffs just down from the falls harbor many rare plant species, and there is a planted prairie in the field above the falls. This falls and the previous two are all within 10-15 minutes of each other.

This is Charleston Falls, another Miami County Park District holding, and a site I had not visited before. It's pretty stunning; reminiscent of the Hocking Hills' Old Man's Cave, just smaller and made out of limestone instead of sandstone. This is the falls that I wish had had a bit more volume to the flow, but nonetheless the site was quite photogenic.

Lastly, one more of the West Milton Cascades from a slightly different perspective. Ohio has plenty of awesome scenery if one just looks around a bit.