After being Covid-19 quarantined for about 6 weeks I had finally had enough of home projects and sitting around bored.  I convinced my wife that we should go on a Sunday Morning Adventure and take a short hike to some waterfalls a friend had told me about.  The drive there was a short 40 minutes, of which the last couple of miles was a gravel and dirt road. We found the trail head and noted only one other car was present. My friend had told me it was a 3/4 mile hike downhill going so I knew in advance it would mean 3/4 back up the hill.  The trail was wide and mostly dry despite recent rains. There were lots of horse hoof prints and droppings showing the trail was frequently used.  About a half mile in we met the other folks coming back up. They had been camping at the base and were struggling to get their gear back up the hills.   The last quarter mile was fairly steep so it was easy to see why.

We got to the base of the falls about 9:00 in the morning and the sun went behind a bunch of clouds so the air was pleasant.  We walked around the base of the waterfall for a few minutes before I set up my tripod and went to work.  The sun still behind the clouds gave the scene a nice even light to work with but the deep shade of the trees also meant a very dimly lit scene with not much contrast.  I metered EVs from 3.5 to 7 which gave me an exposure around 15seconds at f22.  So factoring reciprocity I settled on f22 and 30 seconds.  With moving water I knew it would be nothing but a blur but as long as all else was still I would be ok.  Unfortunately there was some wind higher up at the top of the falls so the distant trees have some slight movement.  The water was not flowing rapidly so the extra time actually capture more splashes than would have been possible with a shorter exposure.  After a couple more shots we decided to check out the campground area and found our green hashed trail markers running along the river below.  So instead of going back the way we came we decided to follow the green trail further.  It slowly rose back up the mountain and even crossed a couple of run off streams but nothing much picture worthy. After about a mile it was apparent we were not going to synch back up with the trail we had come down so I pulled out the IPhone and plotted the route back.  Another half mile we would come to a gravel road which would lead us back to where we started.  The trail back was not very steep but rather winding and much less direct. Once we got to the gravel road it was another 3/4 walk up and down gentle hills, but the gravel is very tiring to walk on.  We were tired by the time we reached the car and ready to head home.  We stopped at a drive through Panera on the way home and got some sandwiches and drinks to replenish ourselves.  Once we got home I measured the distance we had walked on G-Maps and found we had only gone about 3 miles round trip. It felt much longer.

The next day I went to process my images and discovered my now one year old batch of Pyrocat M was turning blue when diluted. So not wanting to chance it I use my OA/2 stock and increased developing time to 15minutes to expand the contrast from the 3.5 SBR. The negative was nice and contrasty with that lovely brown cachetol stain.  A few days later I had some time to print the water fall image above and could see the motion in the top trees. Water was not a silky smooth as I had hoped.  Printing it required only grade 3 with a bit of extra burning at grade 5 to darken the top and bump the contrast. I also dodged some of the rock in the foreground right side to bring out the detail there. After a couple of prints I could see all the flaws and decided what I had was good enough but not worthy of effort to make a fine print.

I will likely visit the scene again after a few days of rain and perhaps a different time of day without the wife and take the same circuitous route back to the car.

Technical: Chamonix 4×5, 135mm lens, FP4+ EI 100, f22, 30seconds.
Development OA/2 1.6mlA+3.4ml B + 500ml W in SP445 tank (single sheet) for 15 minutes (2mins initial and 20seconds every 3 minutes) , Water stop, TF5 fixer, 15minute wash.
Printed on Ilford MGFB Classic 8×10 using Ansco 130 1:1 Kodak stop, Ilford Rapid Fix, rinse,  PF wash aid, final wash 15minutes.