The Salmon River Falls

While in NY I decided to take my grandson to the Salmon River Falls in Altmar, NY on CR-22. These falls are awesome. They drop into a gorge 110 ft. below.

This photo only shows 1 section of the falls. There are 2 other sets of falls to the left of this one. I don't get to see falls in Florida, so this is also a great treat for me. The last time I was there was in 2001 and all I had was a 2 mp digital camera. I wanted to see how they'd look with better equipment.

I must've chose the right time of year because they were really running fast. In 2001, I went in the Spring and there was only a thin ribbon of water dropping. The other 2 falls were hardly flowing.

These falls have a narrow trail leading up to them with only a small guide wire for fencing. Unfortunately, this has been the site of many teens committing suicide. It prompted the State of NY to close the falls for a long time.

As I look around the top of the falls, there's only small puddles of water on the rocks not more than 2 ft. deep--if that. The pool at the bottom is probably only about 3 ft. deep. I can't imagine where all that water comes from.

I'd love to go there in the Fall some time and see the colorful foliage. One of these days I'll remember to plan my trip for the foliage. I usually only go to NY in the Winter to see the snow and the Summer.

In order to get the falls so smooth I shot in Shutter Priority mode at 1/15 sec and F20 gave me really nice depth of field. I used my 18-55mm lens at 53mm, ISO 400 because of the low light. Exposure compensation was set at Ev +2/3 stop to keep the water white, and I used partial metering.

Gorilla

I went to Busch Gardens again; this time in pursuit of a Chimpanzee photo that one of my stock agencies was looking for. Unfortunately for me, the Chimp never struck the pose the art director was looking for (head and shoulders profile with hand on chin, like he was thinking).

I did get some great shots anyway--especially of this magnificent Gorilla. I was standing next to 3 other female photographers and this Gorilla posed for us for a good 15 minutes or so. As you can see, he was looking right at the camera and kept changing positions as if he was modeling. I swear any minute, his keeper was going to ask us for a modeling fee.

Once he got tired of showing off, he moved to the side of his habitat where he's separated from the people by some thick glass. I'm sooooo glad that glass was thick! Someone in the crowd ticked him off--big time. Just as we were trying to inch our way up front for more shots of this amazingly powerful Gorilla, he spotted something in the crowd he didn't like. He walked back a few steps, then charged at the glass. I was so glad that glass held him because he wasn't a very happy camper. Get a look at those forearms!