Today was weird. It started off with gray, overcast skies and ended with Darren de Mouse.
We had hoped for bright but overcast skies for shooting the waterfalls along the Columbia Gorge. When we woke up, we had almost perfect conditions. The only problem was that we were too tired to care. We were completely unmotivated. We caught up on emails, paid bills, looked at images, and basically "crashed."
Columbia River Gorge
By early evening, we summoned enough energy to go out and shoot waterfalls. Multnomah Falls
has always been very tough to photograph
for us because of the extreme contrast between the lower falls plunge pool and the sky above the upper falls. The 612 foot drop requires
a super-wide angle lens, but it's nearly impossible to find an exposure that covers the full range of light in the scene. We've tried HDR
to cover the range, but the colors don't seem right. Yesterday, we had overcast skies to cut the light range by at least a stop or two.
Less light also allowed us to slow the shutter speed more to produce the soft-water affect.
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| Multnomah Falls | Lower Multnomah Falls | Elowah Falls | Elowah Falls |
We continued up the gorge to Elowah Falls.
Carol decided she had enough waterfalls, so she read a book while I hiked up to the falls.
It was warm in the gorge and the humidity was beginning to take its toll. Most of the lower trails in the Columbia River Gorge hike
from the highway up to the base of the falls. When you're done shooting, it's all down hill to the car. Elowah Falls is trickier.
You hike up a ridge to the highpoint of the trail and then drop back down to the falls. That way, you get to hike uphill in both directions.
But Elowah Falls was worth it. The level of the falls is much lower now than when we were here in June a few years ago. The fall was closer
to a whisper than a torrent, and there was far less water in the stream at the bottom. That eliminated some angles and shots but allowed me
to get much closer to the falls without getting soaked. I had the entire area to myself, so I could take my time and try lots of different locations.
We stopped at Home Depot on the way back to the campground. We have a mouse in our motorhome again. This is the second time in the last three trips. We noticed some shredded Kleenex and paper towels earlier in the trip, but seeing him scurrying across the Great Room floor during our movie last night confirmed his presence. We are going to trap our little invader.
Darren's Tale
When we got back to the motorhome, we enjoyed our shrimp scampi and settled in for another movie. Just as the movie ended, our little "friend" ran to the front of the motorhome. We quickly built a barricade to try to keep him in the front, so we could try to "shoo" him out the open door. We tried everything to get rid of him. We put trail mix out the door to entice him to leave. He ate the trail mix but stayed. We tried to set up the trail mix, so I could knock him out the door with a broom but he was too fast. We named him Darren de Mouse for Darren deer mouse. Under other conditions, we would have enjoyed watching him. He was cute. But the thought of him building a nest or chewing into the insulation or wiring quickly brought us back to reality. Darren had to go! Finally, at 3:30 a.m., he hid under a plastic basket we use to store shoes, and I kicked it (and him) through the open door. We finally had the motorhome to ourselves. That was one fast and wily deer mouse, but we finally won out...for now. We'll see if he finds another way back in to the motorhome.
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