Great Falls of the Clear Fork

The Great Falls of the Clear Fork of the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas.

Texas is not known for waterfalls.  We have some historic and some very scenic rivers but the Trinity River is not one people seek out like the Rio Grande, Pedernales, Guadalupe or some of the others.  The Clear Fork is not a very long river either.  Running through only two counties and is about 50 miles long from its headwaters to where it joins with the West Fork in downtown Fort Worth.

It is a small river.  It is also in my backyard (literally) and I often walk, bike and photograph along it.

This waterfall is on the river close to where I live and I visit this spot a regular basis.

I like finding such a neat spot in town and close to home.  Over the last decade I have photographed in a variety of light, seasons, and conditions.

Here is a time I was wading in the river as some nice rain had put a nice flow over the rocks and making it a potentially good image.  I set up the camera and photographed it in both color and B+W.

Here is the monochrome version which better captures the scene this day.

I need to revisit this scene again as the new view here now has a bridge crossing the river only a few yards behind the falls.  My nice scene that might be mistaken for someplace wild will now be firmly pulled into the city.

Rock Ledges of the Clear Fork

Rock ledges of the Clear Fork of the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas.

It was a clear morning one day and even though the conditions were less than idea for color photography, I decided to take the camera and walk along the Clear Fork near my home.

The rock ledges have always intrigued me and I often spend a sunrise or sunset with my camera.  With mostly clear sky I decided to concentrate more on the details of the ledge, water, and some of the early morning light reflecting there.

 The river had a decent flow and I waded along the shallow ledges until I found a good set up.  I made the shot on Velvia and then with the tripod securely not going anywhere, I walked upsteam some and made the image of the camera in the water. 

The Clear Fork of the Trinity River

The Clear Fork of the Trinity River is a small river by almost any standard.  It forms in Parker County, just west of Fort Worth and runs southeast into Tarrant County, where it turns northeast and runs to downtown and joins with the West Fork.  All told 40-50 miles or so.

It is the river I live along and one I do like to photograph.  Usually I walk or bike along the length of it looking for photographs.  I also will drive out into Parker County and look for vantage points of the river.  Usually that means finding roads that cross the river as it is all on private property here.

This is one such location I can see from a bridge.  Luckily this is a unbusy side road that lets me safely visit early in the morning and make images.

On this spring or early summer morning I was able to set up my camera and work with with greens and the river to make this image with black and white Efke 25 film.  

I like the forest view here.  The river is young and not really much more than a stream.  

It makes me wonder what the view is like around the bend.

West Fork Falls

Another view of the falls on the West Fork.  After taking the image in the last post I got in closer for more of a profile view of the falls.  I really wanted to compress the scene as best I could so I went with a bonus lens I have-the old Bausch and Lomb Rapid Rectilinear. 

This is 80+ years old that a buddy found and gave me.  The shutter only partially works.  It will not stop down, so you have to shoot wide open.  The speeds are inaccurate at best, but if you need a 2 second or four second exposure, those are easy to do by just counting. It is also a convertible lens, meaning I can remove one element to double the focal length.

So with on element removed this is about a 300mm lens which makes it my longest.  Now when I go this long that means I also have to have my extra rail and my standard sized bellows as my normal rail and the bag bellows I normally use are too short for this.

With the right set up I am able to bring in my view of the falls to make the water a center piece of my image and not just a small element.

The sky is overcast and I have no problem making it a long exposure to get it right.


One morning and two images/compositions in about 15 minutes.  You know in large format, that is a pretty good day!

Great Falls of the West Fork

The Great Falls of the West Fork of the Trinity River are a little visited spot in Fort Worth.  Hidden under steep bluff in an old park one can find this fantastic 10 foot river spanning waterfall.

It has been one of my favorite places to photograph over the last year.  This was a late winter day when the clouds were thick and I was not even sure if there would be a sunrise.  It seemed like a good day to take out the 4x5 and shoot some film.  

I arrived onsite early in the morning and started picking out a spot for the camera.  I framed up an image with the 210mm lens for a slightly longer than normal view.  Put on my 2 stop grad ND filter to allow for the sky.  Took a meter reading.  It would be a long shot, factor in reciprocity and it was roughly a minute in the dim light.

Decided to go with color and grabbed some Velvia 100F.

Made the image.

Then did a longer exposure with Efke 25 B+W film.

Several weeks went by until the the film was processed.  After looking at them both, I decided the color version, as muted as it was, made the better image.

Downtown at Sunrise

Downtown Fort Worth and the Trinity River as seen from the Lancaster Street bridge.

On a day that looked like the making for a nice morning sunrise I grabbed the 4x5 and headed to Trinity Park. Walked up the bridge onto Lancaster. Then proceeded to set up with a view of the river and downtown.

Started with a 210mm but then dug out the old RR and tried it at both 160 and 320 settings. I am amazed that this old lens not only covers the 4x5 but is also not near as bad as I feared it might be. I was wondering if it would only be good for black and white but it surprises with color.

The Green Banks of the Trinity

The green banks of the trinity River near downtown Fort Worth.

I wish I could be out west everyday, but on weeks when I cannot, I find locations around the area that I can make a decent image. This is in the aptly named Trinity Park that runs along the river near downtown.

I like the greens of late spring and the slow flow of the river.

I also like to photograph the city because of all the change. We seem to be a constant stage of growth and one day I'll look back and think how quaint it was back in 2008.

Trestles on the Trinity

A series of railroad trestles across the Trinity where three lines converge on the downtown area.

The railroads turned Fort Worth from a place the cattle passed through to the place the cattle went to. Several lines come into town and many of the trestles are of the classic steel and concrete style from the early part of the 20th century.

On a clear summer morning I took the camera out to photograph these three at first light. The steel, the weathered look, the reflections-it has alot of the elements to keep my interest and I make several images.

Having locations like this in my town are a nice perk to life here in Cowtown.

Trestle at Night

An old train trestle on the Trinity River near downtown Fort Worth by night.

I had hopes of catching a great sunrise with the trestle and downtown but it was not to be. However as I was working on a star trail image I was able to get this image. The light on the camera is creative use of my trusty headlamp.

Downtown on the River

Here is downtown Fort Worth from along the Trinity River.

The two branches of the Trinity River meet right by downtown Fort Worth. The Clear Fork comes in from the southwest and the West Fork (pictured here) comes in from the northwest and they meet right at the bluff that Fort Worth was built on.

This view is about a half a mile up the West Fork from the bluff on a morning of cool blue light in the sky.

Early twilight on the Trinity River. I was out walking on the ledges of the river on a summer morning listening to the river running over the rocks.

As the first early light started to creep into the sky I started a long exposure to capture the hint of color and motion of the water.

The light levels were low and I think I went with a two minute exposure.

The End of Winter

Today is the Vernal Equinox, also known as the first day of spring. So by the sun it is now spring in the northern hemisphere.

Except it has been spring for several weeks here in Texas. Winter is a very short season here. Our fall color starts at Thanksgiving and ends right before Christmas. Winter is really from Christmas until about the Super Bowl. By that time we are already getting dandelions.

Understand we can still get a cold snap, snow, or more likely an ice day, but we are already having warm days. The trees are budding and flowering by the end of February. The Bradford pears have already blossomed and we are at the edge of the bluebonnets making their annual appearance.

This is my parting shot to winter. It was a few weeks ago, back on the river. It was a typical late winter day here-in the 50's. The trees are still bare but spring is soon to be busting out.

So long winter. Hello spring.

The Upside Down and Backward Thing

One of the first things people notice when I show them the ground glass of an image I am taking is the image is upside down. Then they realize it is backwards too. It is a little disconcerting at first. Your brain and your SLR see the world right side up and this new way of seeing takes a while. It was one of the things I was most concerned about when I got the 4x5 too. Luckily, it was something that I got used to fairly quickly.

It does slow one down a bit. It makes you think. It makes you contemplate the scene. I have heard it say that seeing an image upside down makes you look at a composition based more on shapes and lines than as normal objects. Under the dark cloth it is you and an upside down view and that promotes you to really work that image.

That work is something you just cannot really get at 9 frames per second on an SLR. This is a whole different way to photograph. It is also more like 9 frames a morning.

I find the location and then walk around it. Maybe take a few digital snaps to check potential compositions. Then it is set up the camera and start looking at the world upside down.

Everything counts in a frame of film. Even the empty space matters. Upside down helps with that. Space, shapes, lines are all helped by the different view. I can't fully say upside down makes me compose better but it does make me think better or at the least it makes me think longer.

Here is another image from when I was photographing trees along the river. This is my view of the trees. The dark day really made the image stand out on the ground glass. Normally it is too bright to see the image without a dark cloth, but today it was dark and dreary- the image stood out plainly. I thought it was the perfect day and a perfect way to show it.

Use a view camera and the world is upside down.

Slow

Slow. Using a view camera takes a little getting used to. There is no stopping and taking an image out of your car window. There is not much hope for an "action shot". There is little to no chance of being able to change lenses or a composition during the magic light. There is not even hand holding at all (at least with my camera). You have to learn to work at the speed of a view camera-slow.

Slow means it takes time to do things. In a hurry means I might be able to be set up and take one image in two minutes. But it is often 5 or 10 minutes. Set up to image to pack things up is often 15 minutes-for just one image. It is also common to pack up, shoulder the backpack and stop again in 50 feet and do it all again. Sometimes it just takes a long time to get anywhere.

You just cannot be in a hurry with a view camera. Hurry too much and then -you get sloppy and a view camera punishes the sloppy. So you take the time. Look. Think. Look some more. Focus. Look. Then you can meter and take the image.

You are much more selective with a view camera. If the light is flat, or too bright, or just not right I'll often forego even taking the camera out. I wonder if the subject is worth a sheet a of film. I go slow, think about it, and look for something good. So when I take an image I hope it is a better one. That is the benefit of slow.

It also means I do not take as many images. Over a week in Colorado fall color I took about 100 sheets of film. In that same week I probably took 4000 digital snaps. Two very different cameras and two very different ways of working, thinking, seeing, and photographing.

Here is slow in action. I have seen these trees for several years. I have tried to take a couple of images at different times, but never really found the right conditions or the right way. As I wandered about the other evening I decided the heavy overcast and wind might finally be the time to get the image. The arrival of winter has taken the leaves leaving the branches bare along with the dreary conditions to finally get the image right. Six years of waiting-I guess you could call that slow too.

I set up the tripod downhill from the trees and went to work with them. Level the camera. Framing the trees. Thinking about the image. Trying a different lens. Having to refocus. Stepping back. Taking it all in. Metering. Getting the film. Taking the image. Packing up. I think it was a good 15 minutes. It was one image.

On this dark day, even the exposure was slow-something like 4 seconds. Slow is the norm.

Solstice

I was looking at the calendar this week and realized that today is both the winter solstice and a full moon. I started to think how I could make an image that would capture the idea of the shortest day (or longest night if you prefer) of the year.

I was out early this morning with the moon hanging in the clear western sky, it was still quite dark at 5:30am and I went to a spot where I knew I could get an image looking down river toward the setting moon. I got to the spot only to find that area closed by construction and by the time I found another spot with a similar view it was far to late to try a big camera image.

I thought about the possibility of a mid-day image looking up at the cloudless sky, but as the day went on clouds blew in, the temps dropped, and I still did not have it.

Finally, thick clouds were moving fast as evening approached and I hoped I might get lucky enough to catch some color at sunset. I set up along the river in a cold biting wind and waited. The sky was dark. The cold wind was blowing. The clouds raced by. Then suddenly there was just a hint of color in a small spot in the west, a touch of red in an otherwise dark brooding sky. These were perfect conditions for an image.

I wanted a lot of sky to show the thick heavy overcast clouds. I framed the camera to put the small patch of red in the corner of the image and just a small strip of ground at the bottom. This image was all about the clouds, the wind, and the hint of a sunset. I wanted a long exposure so the clouds were a blur across the sky and stopped down the lens. I composed, focused, set the time and was ready. I had it. This was the way to make an image for what this day was.

The day and the conditions all came together at the right moment to end the day with an image.

Then the light faded and the shortest day came to an end. The longest night was starting. It was cold. It was windy. It was now winter.