Palouse Falls

Pentax K-1, f4, 30 seconds, ISO 800

Palouse Falls in eastern Washington State is a spectacular waterfall that plummets 200 feet into a natural amphitheater. Photographers have captured many images of these falls during daylight hours. The first time I went there in the spring of 2017, I wanted to try some night photos of the falls using light painting, a technique I had tried only a few times before. (This was several years before night photography and camping were banned in this state park.) During the afternoon I scouted a location by the amphitheater rim and checked with several other people who were also camping in the park that night to make sure that I would not interfere with any photography they might be planning. That night I took a series of photographs with the goal of highlighting the waterfall and making the adjacent walls of the amphitheater recede into the darkness. For each photograph I separated the scene into different zones, and painted each zone with a spot light, counting the time I painted each zone. For each exposure, I experimented with the length of time I painted each zone until I achieved the lighting effect I wanted. It was a challenging shoot, both because of the complicated lighting process and because I am afraid of heights.