On a splayed perch
A Great Blue Heron spotted from Bear Trail during a family hike, perched on a splayed root of a tree undercut by flooding, fallen into Buttermilk Creek bed.
A heron recurves its long neck while perched. Adult herons have few natural predators and are rarely preyed upon due to their large size and sharp beak, but bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) are known to attack great blue herons at every stage of their lifecycle from in the egg to adulthood.
Fishing with chaos
Treman lake is formed by a dam on Buttermilk Creek, the trail around the lake is less frequented and popular with the locals, climbing up and down the glacially formed hills. Some popular resorts maintain trails that feed into the park.
A footbridge framed by hemlock trees traverses Buttermilk Creek where the East and West Treman Lake Trails meet. This season, 2019, this bridge was overwhelmed by driftwood piled up by spring flooding, impassable. We pick our way across the creek bed and over the water. Little ones needed a carry. An adult fisherman, to right of driftwood, provides perspective.
August 20129, Buttermilk Falls New York State Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York.
A Bit of History
“Enfield Falls, like many other towns, grew around its grist and sawmills. Farmers coming to this mill about the middle of the 19th century could do errands while waiting for their grain to be ground. In Enfield Falls at that time, there were two sawmills, a shingle mill, cooperage, tannery, carding factory, store and hotel. By the late 19th century there was also a post office.”
“As farmers turned asway from growing wheat, Enfield Falls evolved from a busy milling center to a place appreciated for scenery and a quality hotel. Robert and Henrietta Wickham build and ran the hotel for many years during the middle of the 19th century. The hotel hosted popular dances in its ballroom. Guests could also dine and rest at the hotel.”
The sign in the heading of this post “hung near the hotel at least as early as 1883. In that year, D. Morris Kurtz mentioned it in his “Ithaca and Its Resources”: “At the foot of the hill is the Enfield Falls Hotel, but you look around in vain for the falls or even any sign of them. Upon the side of the stable into which our horses are driven is nailed a small board, on which is painted ‘Admission to the Falls, 10 cents.’ In reply to our inquiry the bright little urchin that takes charge of the team says, ‘Down there they are,’ pointing to the rocky wall which apparently forms the eastern and an unsurmountable boundary to the valley. And to ‘down there’ we proceed……“
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge. This was the control point in the 19th century for collecting the ten cent admission fee. Here are some photographs of the entrance as it exists today. The retaining wall, footpath and stone bridge were constructed in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The site was far rougher for those earlier visitors.
Photograph captured on a midsummer morning. Robert H. Treman State Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York
Series Exploring the Photographic Challanges of this spot
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge. I climbed down into the stream bed.
At the gallery entrance a flat limestone flagstone emerges a few inches from the flowing water. It is here I placed the tripod, different than the previous day’s exposures in that the tripod is lowered, closer to the water and path on right is not visible. The photographs here represent three exposures and two approaches to developing the image.
After a eureka moment writing yesterday’s post I developed the image, below, from the “underexposed” raw file, opening it in Photoshop using the raw dialog to brighten up the image to bring out the left wall. Enhanced the water with “blue” saturation and discovered “Yellow” saturation bring out a reflection of the bright background in the water. The dialog settings are retained in the “xmp” file created by photoshop, appearing as default the next time the raw file is opened.
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge.
It is 8:30 am on a Memorial Day morning Robert H. Treman Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York. From the Canon ES-1Ds Mark III mounted with a Canon 24 mm f/1.4L II USM lens, on a Manfrotto studio tripod and hydrostatic ball head. I chose to save results to a TIFF file as it is not possible to save settings to the raw format.
Series Exploring the Photographic Challanges of this spot
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge. I climbed down into the stream bed.
At the gallery entrance a flat limestone flagstone emerges a few inches from the flowing water. It is here I placed the tripod, different than the previous day’s exposures in that the tripod is lowered, closer to the water and path on right is not visible. The photographs here represent three exposures and two approaches to developing the image.
The first is a combination of two exposures. Both were f-stop 22 (the lens max) in Aperture Priority. One focused on the brighter portion of the stream, resulting in overexposure of the background; the second was on the bright background, resulting in underexposure of the interior of the gallery. In Photoshop the two were combined, using the exposure with the blown out background as the base. Elements of the stream were still too bright, so I stepped up blue saturation. The process took over an hour and the resulting TIFF file is 145 megabytes.
The next exposure sought to balance the bright background and darkness of the left side of gallery. In Photoshop I used the raw image dialog (presented on opening) to tone down the bright, bring out the dark and use blue saturation to tone down the bright water. This took 5 minutes. I was wrong in the previous post in that it IS possible to save these decisions….Photoshop writes an “xmp” extension file with the raw filename. If this xmp file is in the same directory as the raw file when opened by Photoshop, the previous raw dialog box settings are retained as defaults. Even better, the raw file is 24 megabytes compared to the 145 megabyte TIFF file.
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge.
It is 8:30 am on a Memorial Day morning Robert H. Treman Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York. From the Canon ES-1Ds Mark III mounted with a Canon 24 mm f/1.4L II USM lens, on a Manfrotto studio tripod and hydrostatic ball head. I chose to save results to a TIFF file as it is not possible to save settings to the raw format.
Series Exploring the Photographic Challanges of this spot
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge. I climbed down into the stream bed.
At the gallery entrance a flat limestone flagstone emerges a few inches from the flowing water. It is here I placed the tripod, different than the previous day’s exposures in that the tripod is lowered, closer to the water and path on right is not visible. Only the shutter speed is different between these two exposures.
In both, the left side is too dark, as seen in the first. The solution was to carefully copy and paste a better exposure, a technique made possible by the tripod and used for the second shot.
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge.
It is 8:30 am on a Memorial Day morning Robert H. Treman Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York. From the Canon ES-1Ds Mark III mounted with a Canon 24 mm f/1.4L II USM lens, on a Manfrotto studio tripod and hydrostatic ball head. I chose to save results to a TIFF file as it is not possible to save settings to the raw format.
Series Exploring the Photographic Challanges of this spot
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge. I climbed down into the stream bed.
At the gallery entrance a flat limestone flagstone emerges a few inches from the flowing water. It is here I placed the tripod, different than the yesterday’s exposure in that the field only shows the stream, not the flagstone, the camera seems to float over water. ISO set to a fairly slow 250, in deference to the background bright in the risen sun. F-stop F22, the lens maximum, and the shutter speed set automatically, aperture mode, to 3.2 second from a focus point on a darker part of creek.
Opening the raw file in Photoshop, the underexposed left side was brightened using Shadows and Blacks. The slower exposure caused to background to blow out, Highlights and Whites ineffective. The solution was to carefully copy and paste a better exposure, a technique made possible by the tripod.
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge.
It is 8:30 am on a Memorial Day morning Robert H. Treman Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York. From the Canon ES-1Ds Mark III mounted with a Canon 24 mm f/1.4L II USM lens, on a Manfrotto studio tripod and hydrostatic ball head. I chose to save results to a TIFF file as it is not possible to save settings to the raw format.
First of Series Exploring the Photographic Challanges of this spot
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge. I climbed down into the stream bed for this shot, this first exposure of this series. All are from the Canon ES-1Ds Mark III mounted with a Canon 24 mm f/1.4L II USM lens, on a Manfrotto studio tripod and hydrostatic ball head.
At the gallery entrance a flat limestone flagstone emerges a few inches from the flowing water. It is here I placed the tripod. ISO set to a fairly slow 250, in deference to the background bright in the risen sun. F-stop F22, the lens maximum, and the shutter speed set automatically, aperture mode, to 1.3 second from a focus point on the creek surface.
Opening the raw file in Photoshop, the underexposed left side was brightened using Shadows and Blacks. Highlights and Whites toned down the background. I chose to save results to a TIFF file as it is not possible to save settings to the raw format.
Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge.
It is 8:30 am on a Memorial Day morning Robert H. Treman Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York
early one still morning
The fault of Oak Creek changes direction, here it turns east/west through Schnebly Hill Formation red sandstone for which Sedona is famous.
West Fork (108) Trail, Sedona, Yavapai County, Arizona
“Hello” from Oak Creek Canyon, “Photo by Pam Wills”
Click this link for my Fine Art Photography gallery. You can find Oak Creek Mandala in the Arizona gallery. The gallery description gives more information about the site.
Click this link for another Arizona post, “Cochise Dawn.”
early one still morning
The fault of Oak Creek changes direction, here it forms a north/south gallery through Schnebly Hill Formation red sandstone for which Sedona is famous.
West Fork (108) Trail, Sedona, Yavapai County, Arizona
“Hello” from Oak Creek Canyon, “Photo by Pam Wills”
Click this link for my Fine Art Photography gallery. You can find Oak Creek Mandala in the Arizona gallery. The gallery description gives more information about the site.
Click this link for another Arizona post, “Cochise Dawn.”
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 
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