Amicalola – The Cherokee word for Raging water. The falls at Amicalola state park are the unofficial start of the Appalachian Trail with a 10 mile hike to Springer Mountain.

It was the last day of the first quarter of 2018 and I had not shot anything in a while. The weather finally warmed enough for me to get out of the house early in the morning and head to the mountains. It was still a chilly 45 degrees but a couple of layers and some “photographers gloves” helped keep me warm. I had planned to shoot the falls but after arriving the water was not flowing very heavily so I parked at a lower spot on the creek below the falls. I set up my camera in one spot and used the foliage to frame the creek and its many mini-falls and rocks (see below). But I knew there was a better composition closer to the creek bed and I worked my way down the steep embankment nearly falling into the water on a couple of occasions. I didn’t notice the nice little path I could have taken had I looked a little further round the bend. I composed the shot above using the same lens but rotated the back to landscape format. I lowered the tripod some to give the foreground rocks a bit more importance.

In metering the scene I found the textured shadows to be around EV 6 while the white water was between EV 10 and 11. I decided to stop down the lens to f22 because the distance to the far falls was great and I wanted as much as in focus as I could get without exposing too long due to windy conditions. I also moved the exposure up the grey scale such that EV 7.3 was my Zone V value. This led to a metered 1.5 seconds but with reciprocity would need more like 3 seconds. I forgot my watch and phone so had to count “Mississippis”. So maybe somewhere between 3 and 5 seconds. EV 11 was up around zone 9+ at this exposure. When developing I reduced time to near my N- development time. I was using all new Pyrocat HD chemistry so my usual dilution of 3:2:500 for 20minutes would yield a negative that is thin enough to see through but have grey tones in zones 4-8 range. I probably could have gone longer but my preference is a flatter negative which can withstand contrast expansion while printing.

My darkroom is out of commission at the moment so I scanned the negatives using a lightbox and my Iphone. I imported the images into lightroom and photoshop to get an initial view and to assess if they are worth printing. I found the adjustments to be indicative of what I expect in a decent negative. I added a bit of warmth to simulate what I might do with toner once I do print the image on silver paper.

After I shot this image I climbed back up on the trail and found a second composition with a fallen tree which had interesting texture. The creek also had a nice bend and was very contrasty filled with deep shadows and reflective light on the water. Unfortunately the growth around the log is a bit too busy for my tastes but it may “grow” on me. God put those plants there for a reason so who am I to argue with his composition. This was a 10second exposure at f32 also processed in diluted Pyrocat HD, N-. The gray image below is the first shot with the foliage framing the scene. Some back tilt was applied to get the foliage in focus.

Technical Chamonix N2 4×5 Ilford FP4 at EI 100. 180mm Schneider lens. Film developed in Pyrcat HD 3:2:500 using a SP445 tank with minimal agitation.