White Oak Canyon Falls

Author's Comments

The water does most of the work here, but the hemlocks are what I think about afterward. Shenandoah has very few old-growth pockets left, and White Oak Canyon holds some of them - dark, shaggy trees leaning over the cascade, their lower branches furred with moss, the light coming through in narrow green columns. The falls themselves are genuinely dramatic. The first two exceed forty feet and they run hardest in April when the snowmelt is still feeding the upper reaches of the mountain. That is the window I would pick if I could pick only one. The trail down to the lower falls is three and a half miles round trip and it descends the whole way in, which means you climb out. Plan accordingly. The upper falls are a full day and a different kind of commitment, and most people do not make it that far, which is reason enough to try. A tripod is not optional. The hollow holds shadow even at midday and the exposures you want are long ones - a second, maybe two, enough to let the water go soft without losing the texture of the rock behind it. I shoot these falls from below the plunge pool when I can, working close to the spray, keeping a cloth handy for the lens. The boulders are slick and the moss is slicker. Move slowly. The photograph is almost always in the second or third composition, not the first.

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