Leon Turnbull Photography

On up to Blue Canyon in Sonora Pass. Another roadside waterfall, this one 32 ft high, dropping quite impressively into Deadman Creek. It was not too difficult to get down to creek level and it is certainly much more intimate than shooting this falls from the road. I had initially wanted to come back here the next day, cross the creek, and work my way up Blue Canyon to try to find more waterfalls up there. But I had second thoughts when I examined how swiftly the creek was flowing here, it did not look easily crossable, not to mention numb freezing cold. Perhaps I should not try that tomorrow after all. After shooting Blue Canyon I drove back down the pass where I would be sleeping in my vehicle. Or I should say trying to sleep.

I took a quick trip to Sonora Pass last weekend. I left work a bit early and zipped on down the freeway. Zip is a relative term of course. Traffic was awful. I had hoped to get to Sonora Pass by 6pm in order to hike Kennedy Meadows Friday evening but by the time I got down there it was much later than anticipated and I didn’t think I’d have time to do that hike before dark. Instead, I drove up the pass to shoot a couple roadside waterfalls that I had been to before but wanted to get better pictures of. This first one was Deadman Creek Falls. It is just a small 18 footer, but with a lot of flow in the creek there was a lot of mist at the base of the falls. I had to shoot this one from higher up, at the side of the highway. It was a good start to the weekend. But would it last? Stay tuned to find out.

Bassi Falls was a must stop place at sunset for my private workshop on Ice House Rd. My client had not been to Bassi before (or if he had as a kid he did not remember). For me this was my third time here this year alone. Amazingly enough there was even MORE flow in the waterfall than when I was here a week earlier on July 4. Not much more but it was noticeable. Usually by July this waterfall is down to a trickle. Not this year!

We arrived about an hour before sunset. My client was thoroughly impressed with the magnificence of the waterfall. We spent our time wandering around the bottom of the falls working different compositions (of which there are plenty). By my experience I “knew” that Bassi gets beautiful warm light for a short time immediately before sunset. However … What I failed to recognize is that later in the summer this does not happen. The sun goes off the waterfall a half hour before sunset and it did not seem to get that really beautiful light. I should have known that but oh well. We still had half an hour of shooting the falls in shade which also works very well indeed. And the best part (and most surprising part) of the evening: No Mosquitoes!!

South Fork Silver Creek is full of small waterfalls in addition to the big 64 footer. This 20 ft high falls is one of the nicer ones we found along the trail. It is a bit steep getting down to it but once down it offers quite a few different possibilities for compositions. I liked this spot lower down which shows the lower cascade and enchanting curvature of the stream.

On Saturday afternoon I was leading a private workshop up on Ice House Rd. Our first stop was South Silver Creek at Ice House Reservoir. The light was crappy when we arrived (as anticipated) so we just worked on various techniques of dealing with the high dynamic range and compositions. There are not a lot of options at this particular waterfall for composition but for some reason I really liked the little nook in the rock here at the edge of the cliff and personally I worked it to death while my client moved around the area as best he could.

After spending time here we climbed up to the top of the cliff where we could see more small waterfalls called the Teacups. We saw a couple people up there and I was wondering what they were doing. Then I realized they were kayakers! We watched them come down the Teacups and stop at the top of the big waterfall. We thought they might come down the big waterfall so we hurried back down hoping to get some shots of them coming down it. South Silver Creek Falls is 64 ft high. It seems crazy but kayakers have come down this one before. These guys, though, after taking a long look at it decided not to descend. Bummer! I was not sure the reason but I was thinking it might have to do with a huge log at the bottom of the falls. As I found out later, one of the kayakers was actually someone I knew. He said the flow was just too high to do the big waterfall. Seems quite logical to me.

In the meanwhile the waterfall came into the shade so we spent a lot more time shooting the falls here and some smaller waterfalls on the creek before moving on to Bassi Falls for sunset. We spent more time here than I had planned but it really worked out well I thought. Sometimes you just need to go with the flow.