Frozen Fall Creek I
Ice Crystals
Category: Finger Lakes Region of New York State
Big Bend
A tripod and Neutral Density filter
Winter 2020 I posted “Winter People Watching” featuring the Sony F828 and candid street photography.
What I love about this place, a unique feature, is the size and different vantage points making it possible to view the same place from different angles. November 2019, readers were shown “The Bend,” a place with Taughannock gorge makes a 90 degree turn, changing from a southeastern to an eastern flow. Here are photographs from spot overlooked by that post.
Here the camera faces away from the sun, the graduated neutral density filter allowing me to capture the cloudless blue sky, a little milky the way it is here February with a hint of spring.
This little one is studying the information placard with rapt attention, learning how the African continent, pushing against North America, across the eaons, formed the right angle fractures mirrored by this dramatic change in Taughannock Gorge. For the Big Bend photographs I was standing behind them, along the stream bed.
Here is a broader slice of that sky.
Can you see the tiny figures of hikers, dwarfed by the frozen cliff?
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
A Little Water Fall…
…and Gorge Cliffs
Purling of the water beneath this foot high waterfall was enhanced by reducing ISO to 100, tamping down the aperture to f/22 resulting in an shutter speed of 1/10th second. I set the graduated Neutral Density filter to shade the left side.
On the cliffs ahead is where the observation platform is cut into the rock. It has a great view of the waterfall, in some ways the experience of the falls is enhanced, compared to hiking the 3/4 mile path and standing below.
A marvelous forest grows on talus from the high gorge walls.
A sign on a disused pier warns waders to leave the creek bed. Ahead the gorge walls tower above the creek. Rocks dislodge and crash down unexpectedly, crushing foolish waders. It is appalling to see, in warmer months, people walking below those cliffs gathering the fallen rocks to make delicately balanced cairns.
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Meadow Stream, winter 3
Meadow Idyll
Snow under the gathering light of February, edges rounded by sunlight. Can you identify the animal tracks?
All were from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC pro SLR-C with the Canon lens EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Meadow Stream, winter 2
Meadow Idyll
The glacial marls through which this water flows to emerge here clear and pure were under threat from development in the 1980’s and 1990. Thanks to the efforts of the landowner, the uniqueness of this environment was preserved.
The first two photographs are combined and enhanced in photoshop to yield the third, combination, photograph.
All were from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC pro SLR-C with the Canon lens EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Meadow Stream, winter
Meadow Idyll
This water emerges from glacial marls, pure and clear, before flowing into a kettle pond. Here we see it on a winter afternoon meandering across a meadow before joining the Fall Creek of the previous postings of this week.
The first two are the same photograph. One has been enhanced in Photoshop. The other was perfected in Lightroom. The third is a different photograph taken about the same time, also peracted in Lightroom.
All were from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC pro SLR-C with the Canon lens EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Keuka Lake Winter I
Keuka, the crooked Finger Lake….
Sunday, Pam and I travelled across the peneplanes, past three Finger Lakes, to reach the Dr. Konstantin Frank winery where we subscribe to the “Wine Club,” a quarterly release of three 750 ml wines along with a newsletter with information and recipes. For 2018/2019 we elected to “pickup” our selections, looking forward to these drives through the country and villages between Ithaca and the winery perched on the west side of Keuka Lake, just below the “branch.”
Preeviously, I posted “Glacier!!” and today there is this photograph of glacial topography 10,000+ years after the melt. Keuka Lake is shaped like a “Y” chromosome, here we are looking northeast across the “foot” of the “Y” from the west lakeside. Above the evergreens, to the left, is the headland separating the “arms” of the “Y”.
Spread out below our viewpoint are row upon row of grapevines, enjoying the microclimate surrounding the deep lake.
Click this link for my Fine Art Photography gallery.
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Lighthouse Point 5
Sundry elements
Uncategorized details from our Lighthouse Point adventures.
A humble and fertile weed.
Before the parade of mast-like iron poles was this wooden one where it was apparent there could be no light on the white tower without power.
On top and under the surface
Look closely, children
A demon greeting
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Lighthouse Point 4
The Views are the Reward
Here is the south end of Cayuga Lake on a bright November afternoon. Stewart Park is enjoyed by Ithacans year round.
Everyone is a fan of the Willows framing the lake views.
Can’t get enough of Stewart Park..
An unzoomed view, to give an idea of the distance across the water.
Pam and I have great memories of sailing this stretch from our years of membership in Cornell Family Sailing.
The east lake shore.
The West Lake Shore. This photograph captures the electric line that powers the Red Tower light. Seagulls enjoy that causeway…I’ve never seen humans walk it.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Lighthouse Point 3
At the White Tower
The quarter mile jaunt over the causeway yields the reward of this view up the White Tower…..
…and this vantage of the Red Tower, the west shore of Cayuga Lake leading down to Crowbar Point in the distance, colored by Autumn.
The shore is privately owned, some lake houses are visible. To the right are moorings of the Ithaca Yacht Club.
A closer view of the Red Tower.
White Tower graffitti.
My thoughts exactly…
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 