Horsetail Falls, OR

Images from Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, OR, February 2010

Multnomah Falls, OR

Images from Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, OR, February 2010



Okay, now we've seen the postcard shot, and gotten it out of the way. Now let's look at the front edge, with the veil behind, which I think is much more interesting.



Now look off to the right, where because of the recent heavy rains there's a multi-stepped stream coming down another side of the canyon wall. What's usually a trickle has become a rivulet, and fascinating to watch.



I'm always looking off to the side like this, looking for the oblique approach, the sideways view, the little corner no one else seems to notice. (Which is exactly how I feel about Latourell Falls, just a short drive away, which most of the tourists never seem to visit.) A grotto, full of spirits, moss-covered boulders and treestumps becoming sacred altars in the wet green light.



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Seriously, though, Multnomah Falls really are spectacularly beautiful. They are the best-known, most-developed, most-visited falls of the Scenic Area. They are visible from the interstate, if you just turn your head as you drive by.



You can walk the trails and view the falls from many angles. You can get close, or stand back and take in the magnificent scale of the upper and lower falls, the pool, the river falling down eventually to the Columbia and off to the Pacific Ocean. You can climb up a steep trail to the clifftop and look down on the entire world of the vast Gorge.



And afterwards, you can sit down a great meal at the visitor center's hotel and lodge. If you pick your seat properly, you can even see the top of the falls. I've eaten at the restaurant, sitting right next to a giant roaring stone fireplace, warming my cold bones after hiking wet trails to waterfalls all day making photos, and it was one of the more satisfying meals of recent memory.



And then stand back, on the walk out, and take it all in one last time, hear the roar of the falling water. Take a deep breath, the air thick with mist, and the nearby smell of the greater river with its hint of sea-smell, and be renewed.

Sheppards Dell Falls, OR

Images from the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, OR

Latourell Falls

images from Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, OR, February 2010





Latourell Falls is, for me, right now, my favorite waterfall in the world. Considering how much I love waterfalls, how often I seek them out to visit, to make photographs, to listen to their voices, that's saying a lot. Latourell Falls is not most the famous falls in the Columbia River scenic area near Portland, OR, nor the most visited; but for me it is the most sublime, most beautiful, most personally beloved.



The falls are set back in a slot canyon carved from the native basalt, carved like all these falls, like the Columbia River Gorge itself carved by the giant Missoula floods of the Pleistocene.



If you want impressive size, go visit the most-visited falls in the area, Multnomah Falls, which is also the most "developed," with an inn, tourist attractions, shops, and other amenities. Go to Multnomah if you want the tourist experience; seek out Latourell if you want to be alone with the elements.







Whenever I enter the canyon of Latourell Falls, it's like stepping into a Japanese Zen meditation garden. The walls of the canyon and green and black, rich with living things. They are sculpted as if by an artist's hand, with trees and fallen boulders placed just so. The falls themselves are heard before they are seen; even in winter, with most of the trees bare, you get only glimpses until you are hear at hand, partial views that almost seem designed or planned. The everyday sounds are lost under the sound of water falling 224 feet from cliff edge to bouldered foot. The falls make the world silent. The trail twists back into the canyon a couple of hundred yards, then passes near the foot of the falls, across a wooden bridge over the creek, and up the other side of the canyon.



For me, Latourell Falls are perfect in every way. Not too large to be able to absorb, sublime rather than spectacular, hidden back in the canyon away from the casual eye, therefore less crowded, more contemplative, more meditative. You can be alone in there for long periods of time.



I can spend hours at the foot of these falls. I've made some of my personal favorite photographs here, the personally-chosen images I've printed large and hung on the walls of my home.



Here, I am refreshed, I am renewed. Walk in, spend time by the falls, walk out changed, recharged, made whole. Just breathing in the cold misty air at the bade of the falls is a balm.



The world outside is lost and forgotten as though it had never been. Even after you leave the falls proper, the world is slow to reassert itself, giving you a space before you must come back to yourself. The transition is gradual, like a pilgrimage, like walking the labyrinth, like entering and exiting sacred space. It takes time to arrive, time to depart.



This is a sacred place. A place of power, of delight and healing alike. The spirit of this place is alive with green life, dark with old beautifully-shaped cliff rocks, dark with the eyes of the magic of silent deer, bright with the goldfinch's wing. This is sacred time: there is no time here, only a shard of eternity.



Every time I pass through this part of the country, I stop in to these falls for a visit. And when I leave, I go on with life, with whatever journey I am on, renewed, refreshed, my mind stilled and cleared, calmed and replenished. Healed. Remade. Bouyed up by whatever power there is, that supports and bears up all life.

Oceans & Skies: Pacific Coast

images from the Pacific Ocean coast, OR, February 2010


Heceta Head Lighthouse overlook, OR

Driving up Highway 101, the coastal highway, in days and nights of heavy winter rain. Storms always coming in, blowing past, making dramatic skies, mists, heavy surf, and surging the waterfalls. Even the smallest falls take on special power in the continuous rains.






Port Orford, OR, with Humbug Mountain in the distance


waterfall, Humbug Mtn. State Park, OR

This small waterfall exists at a sharp corner of the highway, where it passes through Humbug Mtn. State Park, flowing down into a creek that winds through the Park and out to the beach at the foot of the mountain. Traffic whizzes by and no one ever seems to notice the waterfall. It's always there, but because of the heavy rains and winter storms, it was a torrent instead of a trickle. I always look for it, whenever I pass by, and often stop to make a few photos.



To make these photos of this small but beautiful waterfall, I had to park 100 yards down the road at a pullout, then hike in along the narrow roadside with no shoulder, under steep cliffs at the base of Humbug Mtn., trucks and cars going by at high speed inches away from the tripod and camera. On this day, I also had to keep the rain off the camera at the same time. This is when photography gets adventurous and exciting, rather than routine.


the beach at Moolack, OR

Robert H Treman State Park

images from Robert H. Treman State Park, Ithaca, NY



After a long day—less than 60 miles of driving, but all morning hiking up and down Watkins Glen, photographing around Seneca Lake, driving over to Cayuga lake for more waterfalls, then wandering around Ithaca and the Cornell campus in the later afternoon—I spent the night at Robert H. Treman State Park, less then a ten minute drive down the road from Ithaca. There are two state parks right next to Ithaca which are both used as municipal swimming places all summer long by the locals: Treman, and Buttermilk Falls State Park. Buttermilk wasn't yet open for the season, but camping was open at Treman.



What's cool about Treman and Buttermilk Falls is that they have big deep pools right at the foot of the lower falls. In summer, at Treman, the pool is partially dammed to make a huge natural swimming area. I remember one hot afternoon in 1990, the place was full of kids and parents cooling off. The place was loud and merry and full of kids running around. There's a diving board installed in summer, and a lifeguard present to keep watch.





One of the activities almost everyone tries is to walk along the ledges in the waterfall itself, those steps and shelves made in the falls by the local flat stones, just as at Watkins Glen. People edge sidewise along the falls, till they reach the side of the falls, step out, and dive back into the water.



That's where I took this photo, in 1990. This has become of my own favorite photos, over the years. It's iconic: a personal symbol carrying deep meaning for me: almost archetypal of struggle, survival, and overcoming. I later used the image as part of a Photoshop piece, some of my earliest B&W collage work in Photoshop.



Beyond the lower falls, Enfield Gorge runs for miles up the hillside. There are several falls along the trail, and some spectacular views. It was too early in the season, unfortunately, for the trails to be open yet.



I found myself a relatively isolated and private campsite under a grove of tall trees, scrounged firewood from the deadfall around my site in the failing light—enough to have a merry campfire till I was ready to go to sleep, at least—set up camp, made dinner, and set up the tent. This roadtrip was so often rainy and cold that I camped out less than I'd originally planned. This was one of the best camping nights of the trip. I used some of the food I'd brought with me from home for dinner, and made myself a gourmet meal of buffalo burgers with green onions, rice, and a glass of wine.



After dinner I drove into Ithaca briefly, feeling restless, and spent time at a big chain bookstore till they closed. This is where I bought a series of lectures on CD about Walt Whitman, which I listened to during the return trip, spaced over three days. The lectures were pretty good lectures, overall, with extensive discussion about the context of Whitman writing his poems, and their importance to and impact upon poetry and culture since Whitman's death. I listened to all of these CDs before eventually stopping at Whitman's final home in Camden, NJ, for a brief visit. (Online, The Walt Whitman Archive is a huge resource worth exploring: it contains texts and images of each edition of Leaves of Grass, extensive scholarly material, and a valuable collection of every known photo of Whitman.) Whitman's presence grew in my mind during this roadtrip, as the trip itself shifted more and more towards being an arts and literature pilgrimage, and away from being purely about photography and video. I'm still sorting all this out; which of course is why I need to write about it; call it thinking out loud, if you must.

When I went to bed, there were stars and a moon standing silent behind the trees, whose uppermost branches were dancing slowly in a night breeze. On the hillside near my campsite, there were trillium in bloom everywhere.

Later, there was a ring around the moon: which means high atmospheric ice crystals, which means cirrus clouds, which usually foretell another storm within a day or two.

Waterfalls at Seneca Lake, NY

images from She-Qua-Ga Falls and Aunt Sarah Falls, at Montour Falls, NY, and above Seneca Lake, north of Watkins Glen





in bright morning white
water falling across shelves of
ancient stone gives voice

rivers coming off the bluffs above the lakes everywhere falling white fast true pure loud
stairstep falling true veil into prism longship sight above rainswollen rivulets into sand
stone of memory stone of being or light and revelation stone of hard broken chisel face
into the sun wind light cmoing down between cedar aspen and oak coming down
as sun into wood into wind into water become soil hardstep shelfstep trail to walk
hunters naked under sun taken trails under falls into echo loud window door of worlds
bathers now wade under water fallen underscore ages stone under old sun old time
before breath before moon under stone under shield of sun and lightning

these long fingers of whitewater edging the blank stone
where you walk barefoot firm and confident towards revelation