Leon Turnbull Photography

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.