A
very wise man (that would be me) once said that it’s impossible to take a bad
picture of Ricketts’ Glen, and that’s still true. You really have to have a fly
move in front of the camera, swerve quickly so you lose focus, or catch some
nasty reflection on the water to ruin a shot of Pennsylvania’s much-visited
waterfall capital. Nevertheless, it should be said that it’s hard to get out of
the normal distribution when it comes to taking a picture of Ricketts’ Glen.
For
those people not initiated into statistics, I’ll be brief. If you take 100
things, 68 of them will be sitting dead red in the center with little or no
difference better or worse than the others. Another 13.5 will be sitting either
just above or just below “average,” so now 95 of those things are accounted
for. What this means is that 2.5 of them are excellent, and another 2.5 of them…
not so much.
So
if we apply this to Ricketts’ Glen, should you take 100 photos of Harrison
Wright (from 100 different photographers), one of the best waterfalls going at
Ricketts’ Glen (or B. Reynolds or Ganoga or any other falls on any given day),
you will have a beautiful waterfall presented to you in pretty much the same
way over and over.
We
can do this head on… the waterfall from left to right with the water crashing
30 feet to the earth. We can do this from the stairs… as the water is viewed as
it crashes to the pitch pool beneath. We can walk across the stream and stop at
various locations… from the right… from the left… whatever. We can take it home
and Photoshop it to give us the full
effect. We can get all artsy and focus on a rock in the foreground with the
background just out of focus. We can make it seem like we’re in the Lord of the
Rings as we’re wandering through the forest to come upon it. We can take the
picture looking down over the top. We can do it in winter, summer, spring, and
fall. We can permanently superimpose some cute gal or hunky dude or couple
about to get married in the foreground. We can accidentally capture images of
people walking down beside it. We can tap our toes as we wait for the 98 other
photographers there on any given weekend to get out of our way, and we can
hurriedly snap the picture to get it over with and capture our Kodak Picture
Moment for the rest of eternity because that’s what we need to do.
Let’s
be honest; it’s all been done before, every picture, every angle, every way.
But you see… that’s not
a bad thing.
Generally speaking in
advice to the amateur photographer, it all comes down to a couple things:
1) How
do the elements affect your picture?
2) What
are you going to do with your picture?
3) What
are you really hoping to get a picture of?
4) What
do you want in your picture?
5) What
don’t you want in your picture?
As a guy who has taken
way too many pictures and placed them on this website
and written about the adventures that made them up here
, I know a thing or 2 about a thing or 2 when it comes to taking a million
pictures for posterity, so I’ll try to give you some non-technical advice about
cameras and photography for the non-professional (i.e. your camera is point and
click with maybe a few more features).
1) The
elements do affect your picture. If you take the picture at night, you need to
know how the flash being on or off shoots the scene. If you’re outdoorsy and
you’re hiking in waterfalls, you need to get yourself a good waterproof camera.
I have an Olympus Tough. It’s been good to me in that it still works after going
in the water when I was at Sullivan Run in northern Pennsylvania and Dunn’s
River Falls in Jamaica. I like knowing that I won’t lose all of my pictures if
it falls to the bottom of the creek. It’s also crushproof and freeze proof to a
certain degree. I like that, too. Having lost a camera lens to it falling in
the dust at Zion National Park and another lens to someone who knocked it over…
durability is a plus. My waterproof was a $200+ camera, and it’s only 5x (my
non-waterproof discontinued model Kodak, which was the same price, is 10x), so it’s an investment,
but so is a GoPro if you want to strap one to your helmet and take gnarly video
of yourself doing things (and let’s be honest; I do, but I don’t have about
$400 sitting around to buy one). All the same, I use my Droid phone to take a
lot of pictures as well. It’s on me, and it allows me to get all egotistical
when I post pictures of awesome places to Facebook.
It seems that camera quality for the Average Joe and Jane can be reduced to
cellphones since they do that posting thing AND they are immediately available
to look at or share with others if you’re hanging out AND they are much better
quality than cheap, throw-in with the package cameras used to be. I like that,
too. That said, I’m easy to please.
2) Knowing
what you want out of your pictures goes a couple ways:
A) Are
you going to submit your picture to a contest? Shoot in high resolution. Learn
how your picture creates images. Play with photo processing software. Learn how
you can manipulate things to make them look real or artsy by experimenting with
the camera’s settings. Then ask yourself a question: “How do I compare to the
other people shooting the same places?” Don’t get down on yourself because they’re
better than you, but do practice, practice, practice! That means hike all over
the place and take a million pictures. The good thing is that you don’t have to
pay to develop the film. Everything is digital now. You might only get a few
great images, but you got great images. Flex your mad art muscle. You rock!
B) Are
you going to let a little kid learn to shoot images? Let him or her shoot a
million pictures! Besides, it’s digital, and you don’t have to pay to develop
it, so just let your kid shoot away. Kids only get better with practice.
C) Are
you just going to capture the moment for posterity? Then practice ahead of time
and scope out some good ideas while you’re there. Shoot from every angle. Get
artsy! Get creative! Make your family pose at every waterfall! It’s your shot.
Take your pictures your way.
3) If
all you want is the image, you don’t have to beat the normal distribution. If you
want “oohs,” “aahs,” and “likes,” then you need something original at a unique
place, and you need it in a unique way (like a baby buffalo being born at
Custer State Park in South Dakota – been there, done that!). I have to be
honest; I used to like my Ricketts’ Glen pictures (I had a huge photo collage
of them on my wall), and then I saw stuff by some of the photographers on the Facebook group pages. I could name their
names, but I won’t (to spare the feelings of the others). I will say that there
are only a handful of people whose stuff I regularly “like” from Ricketts’ Glen
(they are the pantheon, and I should say that if I didn’t take pictures of my
own to put on my walls, I might even consider buying theirs!). Nevertheless,
compared to their stuff, I should say that I don’t adore my own pictures in
that same “ooh aah” way. That’s not me being self-hating, but it does say how
much that upper 2.5% can really stand out (even compared to my “highly-respectable”
outlier stuff). What it does attest to is that the big problem with a place
like Ricketts’ Glen is that the 99 pictures that your photo is up against on
Facebook is now 999 (if your purpose is to be “liked” on Facebook). In this, it’s like the Grand Canyon or Old Faithful.
What this means is that everyone feels he or she has to get the shot and show
it off. Nevertheless, if all you want is the image, then you have the picture
proof that you were there, and that’s great. I learned this when I went in the
Air Force (and onto England). I knew I needed picture proof to show I had been
there, done that, so I took pictures of anything I could think of. I continued
this when I returned to America and began travelling. During that time, I
missed several shots on my 1998 and 2000 cross country trips, so it would be 2
years later in each case until I went back to retake pictures of odds and ends.
I also lost pictures because my film was exposed (yeah, I’m so glad we don’t
use film anymore for so many reasons). I took a lot of practice stuff in black
and white that just didn’t work (and cost a lot to develop), but I practiced,
practiced, practiced. Now, my wife lets me display some of my better work in
the house. I like that. I really like her. Someday, I want to let her add more
of my stuff to the house!
4) Do
you want your family in the picture? Do you want a close-up picture of a
critter? Do you want to sneak back and find the place that the Hopi Indians
came out of the Earth for the first time way back when or permanently prove the
existence of some mysterious UFO at Area 51? If you do, you need lots of
practice, practice, practice, or you might miss it because you’re fooling
around with the settings in the dark or in bad light or too far away to be seen
clearly! It’s digital, so get a big SD card and shoot all of the video and
images you can manage from all of the different angles that you can (think
cubism like M.C. Escher). And bring some extra batteries. Cameras go through
them quickly. I recommend rechargeable batteries.
5) Knowing
the limits of what you want in your pictures is a good thing. What I don’t want
in my pictures is maddening hordes. I like places to myself. Yes, the outdoors
are for everyone, but sometimes, everyone is a little much when you want to not
be rushed by tapping toes waiting to get the next image without red jackets or
white t-shirts filling the area around waterfalls and you happen to be there
taking your dream shot at the exact moment they feel entitled to theirs. Thus,
you probably want early morning… on a weekday… not in the summer... at a place
that isn’t a state park… If you want waterfall pictures, you probably also want
to be there after a rainstorm. Fall is not a good season unless you want
colorful leaves, and then you probably want to be there by about October 10th
because any later (at least in the north), and you’ve got some skeletal trees.
I don’t want them unless they’re covered with ice, but that’s just me. I also
don’t want graffiti on rocks, so I’m officially done with places like St. Peter’s
Village.
So if I were asked to
give last minute recommendations, I would say to think about the following
things that apply to being an expert, amateur photographer who can captivate
the average Joe or Jane with your images (at least enough to find a new hiking
buddy):
1) Know
how much time you need to hike in and out to get all the pictures that you
want. Plan to scope it out so that you know how the light comes through the
trees and into the area. Ask others. That’s why you’re on this site, right?
2) Know
how much gear you reasonably want to trek in with you. If you’re thinking about
a tripod, it comes in and out. Ricketts’ Glen is a 7 mile hike that goes up and
down a pretty big Pennsylvania mountain. Like the Boy Scouts say, “Be prepared”
to lug your stuff around.
3) Know
the conditions of the trail. Sometimes, you’re walking in water. Sometimes,
like at Glen Onoko, you’re in the water, climbing over fallen trees, and
pulling yourself up by roots while scaling rocks. Be careful with that camera.
It contains photos for posterity and it cost you some serious bank. You really
don’t want to do anything to break it.
4) Don’t
forget to see the world of waterfalls without your camera. If you have company,
don’t forget that they came with to enjoy the waterfalls with you, or you might
find that your next trip is a solo outing.
5) Know
if you’re going to be a nature photographer or a people photographer. There is
a difference. I’m a nature guy myself. I don’t find many people who can pose
well – except my wife. I like her. I hope she lets me take pictures of her at
cool nature spots for many years to come!
6) Practice,
practice, practice!
7) Have
fun!
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