New Fine Art Pictures of Mount Hood, McKinzie River and Koosah Falls
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After a couple of years of talking about it, my sister was finally able to accompany me on one of my photo expeditions. We had a fantastic time together and the search for images almost became unimportant.
We started this expedition in northern Oregon around the Columbia River Gorge. We were disappointed that the trails and waterfalls around the Gorge were still closed off due to the Eagle River fires of 2017. We did make one afternoon trip down to Trillium Lake for sunset before moving up our schedule to head to central Oregon.
The calm conditions at Trillium Lake were just what we had hoped for, but we didn’t figure in all the people that would be at the lake on a Saturday afternoon enjoying various summer activities. The kayaks and paddleboarders didn’t do the reflection any favors, but I do feel this image conveys the enjoyment of being out there with others to enjoy a great sunset.
We moved on to central Oregon, basing in the town of Sisters, which is a wonderful little town northwest of Bend and close to the rivers and waterfalls we were targeting. There is a section of the McKenzie River, that for some reason, has a bright and deep blue color to it. You would think from looking at the images that it couldn’t really be that colorful and that I increased the color. The river really does have that much color!
Sahalie Falls is a large and powerful waterfall that you start out quite close to. To get the scene right, the trick is to get back from the falls to include the river. It’s a slippery, muddy climb down the embankment and you risk falling in the river, but the result is worth it!
Just up the trail from Sahaile Falls is a wonderful log footbridge that goes over the river. I simply cannot pass up bridges like this. It was not possible to find a place along the river to photograph it from there, so I decided on an image of the bridge itself. As it turns out, this may have been good fortune, as I really like the image.
Our next target on the river was Koosah Falls. Photographing these falls was the biggest challenge of the trip. It was an extremely steep, muddy and root filled scramble down a steep 50 foot embankment to get in position. I wasn’t sure if I should do it, but I really wanted to capture this image. I was absolutely thrilled with the result and equally happy to make it back up the embankment to the trail.
We searched for every possible location to access the McKenzie River and there was only one more that we found, at the end of the river before it poured into a reservoir. There wasn’t really a marked trail, but I could see that if I crawled under and over some downed trees, I could get to a small area with a great view up the river. I can’t begin to say how thrilled I was to find this spot. I have never seen it photographed from here before. The colors were vivid and the view spectacular.
Next up will be the Grand Canyon in mid-August during the monsoon storm season. I am hoping to capture some lightning images over the canyon along with some great sunrises and sunsets. This is another one that has been on my list for a while.
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