Nicollette- Laurel Falls
The last frame of the day- Sony A9iii
As I move even more into the outdoor, adventure space I love to encourage my friends and clients to trust the process and visit more remote locations. While Laurel Falls isn’t a super long hike, it does have some tricky sections especially the “stairs” leading to the actual falls themselves. These rock steps that wind down and down and down are beautiful in their own way but can be treacherous to new or unexperienced hikers. They are even more daunting when 3 of the 4 people hiking in on this specific day, find the yellow jackets nest the hard way. Nicollette was stung in her thumb, her mom was stung in the leg several times, and I got hit 4 times in the same area under my backpack, in the shoulder. The thing about these nests are they are hidden well, and often under the ground. This one in particular was set back under a highway of tree roots creating the perfect cavernous home for them. The jerks. The worst part of this was the fact that they are dead center of the only trail leading in and out of the falls. So in case you are not following, yes we got stung going in, but also had to pass the same nest to get back out. I am happy to report, we somehow managed to avoid getting attacked on our exit. I have no idea how.
Surveying the damage- Sony A9iii
The hike started on the Dennis Cove side at the very well marked trail head. The closer I was getting, the more worried I was about the weather. The drive for me is about 45 minutes, and the weather app said we wouldn’t see any rain until 7pm. We planned accordingly to meet up at 5 to allow plenty of time to hike in, create some work, and hike out without running into the issue of weather. In planning for this, I was so excited to fully test the Sony A9iii and some off camera flash. I won’t dive into that here but if you are curious, please let me know. I can talk gear for hours! Then a few more hours but once we met up, the rain had decided to ignore what the apps said, and moved in hours ahead of schedule. This meant leaving all of my lighting in the truck. This isn’t a big deal, but I will admit I was a little bummed to not get to really get creative with lighting. Having said that, the natural light ended up being wonderful at the falls. As you reach the bottom, the sky opens up allowing tons of light in and the cloudy, overcast cover was the perfect moody softbox for the setting.
We moved quickly and Nicollette is a rockstar who photographs so wonderfully that this was such a fun time out in the beautiful world around us. I am so excited to share almost every delivered frame from this day below. I feel like we met each others energy in a way that just works. Especially when the weather is frantic and changing. We did get rained on at the end of the session but we laughed and just kept working and I honestly couldn’t be happier with the results. I also hope if you are reading this, and you are seeing the work below that you also are inspired to get out, to create moments with people that you love, and bring me along to capture those moments.
I will end by admitting, aside from the black and white images, this is a little “off brand” for me. That is not a complaint by any means, and I think it’s healthy to admit that art changes, life changes us, and we change how we see these moments some times. Yes I should be more consistent to build a brand probably, and I edited these from start to finish twice. I loved both of the visions I ended up with but ultimately felt the moments, the weather, the subject, and the energy lead to this more organic final product. Let me know what you think!
Later Neighbor!
J