Capturing the Art of Nature
Tiffany’s, Sherman’s & Shaver Falls (Day 2)
It felt great being back exploring Hamilton again. Today we started with 3 waterfalls and ended in the farms.
Category
Ontario Adventures
2010
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I look forward for months to our annual trek to Ontario where we take in family visits and exploration of nature shrouded in the rich fall colours common to Ontario. Today was a great day for trekking through the leaves and trails. After a leisurely breakfast, my wife’s cousin Mike picked me up at the hotel and we set off for Tiffany’s falls – the first of the three waterfalls we will be exploring today. We met his brother-in-law – Steve – at the parking area and from there we trekked in along the creek towards the main waterfall.
Tiffany Falls was a lovely walk; we started capturing shots from the start. The colours were mostly yellows and oranges but the odd speck of red could be teased out of the trees from time-to-time. The weather was perfect for the activity with broken clouds offering us a variety of lighting conditions throughout our visit. When we finally made our way to the falls we met another photographer who was busy capturing the scene. He was having a great time trying out different lenses and angles, he even had a 3D lens adapter which caught my eye and will be worth further exploration. The mist coming off the water was heavy enough to cover my lens after a few minutes so we had limited time to get our photos. A number of other groups were also trekking up to the viewpoint to enjoy a few minutes with the roar of the water.
We returned to the car and set off for Sherman’s falls this was only a short distance further along the Escarpment. This waterfall had a good flow with a ledge that turned the drop into two shorter drops. From the bottom it looked like a single drop but if you climbed up the slope a few yards you could capture it in a way to show the split nature of the drop. The scene was surprising quite different from the two angles. Here the wind was blowing towards the waterfall so we didn’t have the mist problem like at the first location. This spot was also not as popular and we were the only ones enjoying the view though we did meet a group leaving as we arrived.
Once done with the second location, we drove back past our first spot and took a few side roads to find the recommended parking spot to hike to the third waterfall – Shaver Falls. None of us had been here before so we were truly exploring the trails and did in fact turn the wrong way at one point. But soon we were heading the right way and approaching the creek with the falls. Steve was out of time by this point and so had to turn back before he saw the twin falls. Mike and I continued on and were getting a bit concerned that it was a dud until we finally rounded a further ridge and there up a side trail was a lovely twin fall. We walked up the side valley towards the drop and captured a series of water shots but also a number of close-ups of various scenes along the side of the creek. We even spotted a larger frog that was resting at the side of the water. It was a lovely place and we gathered a good number of photos. Once done, the walk back to the car went faster than our way in as it was mostly down-hill and we didn’t make any wrong turns.
As we drove back to the main road we spotted a tree on the side of the road which was heavily covered in large red berries. They were quite large and were thick over the whole tree, it was quite a sight and so we stopped to get a few photos of it. Our next stop was for lunch and we drove back to the top of the Escarpment and further south to a place recommended by Steve. The sandwiches were great and once fed we returned to our exploring, we decided to travel the farm country and see what it would reveal.
Our first stop was to enjoy the wide-open panorama of a cornfield ready for harvest. The play between the beige corn socks and the vibrant sky with patchy clouds was amazing. We continued driving and came to a soy field with a very different tone to it. A tree out in the middle of the field had some lovely textures to capture. We made our way south and came by a marshy patch with some wild flowers between the road and fields, which offered some varying mixture of nature and farm. We also captured some close-ups of some wild plants. As we drove we stopped from time-to-time to gather some interesting colours.
Eventually we came by a small pond that offered us a marshy area to photograph. Here we did a number of macro shots of waterweeds and leaves floating on the water. We spent a significant amount of time here enjoying the warm sunshine as the light played off the water surfaces and the floating debris. Soon both Mike and I had captured everything from telephoto shots across the pond to macro shots of leaves on the roadway! It was a fun area and we were both glad we stopped, backed-up and parked to take a few moments to see it. We then started a slow return to home and soon found ourselves crossing another stream. Just off the bridge was an older single lane bridge that looked like it had some secrets to tease out. We parked along the road and started exploring the area. Here we started with some more macro shots of the plants and then moved on to wider views from the old bridge. It was a lovely scene to enjoy. A leaf covered trail led away from the road along the side of a field that looked very inviting. We followed it for a short distance as it made its way through a grove of large coloured maples. Once back at the car we decided it was time to head home so I could get ready for dinner with my wife’s aunt. We decided we would start in the farm country with tomorrow’s travels.