Devils River Falls – Maribel WI – Real Artists Ship
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Real Artists Ship Photography Blog By Neal Grosskopf

Neal Grosskopf

Devils River Falls – Maribel WI

Before & After

The Devils River Falls are a beautiful set of falls located next to a campground about 20 minutes outside of Green Bay. I had been meaning to visit them for quite awhile but I was confused on their exact location. After seeing another photographer take some pictures of them online, I decided it was time to finally visit them and do my best to create a great shot of them.

Location

The location of the falls has been a mystery to me for awhile. I originally thought they were on the east side of Packer Dr. I had scouted them a fair amount via Google Maps.

At some point I realized that they are actually near the Devils River Campground.
When I visited the falls, I had no idea where they were. My original plan was to park my car on the road and hike in along the river until I reached them. After doing that, I realized it was a terrible idea as the brush is pretty thick. After that I resorted to driving into the campground. There are a few signs that say private campground etc. although I didn’t get any trouble when I drove in. In fact Some people who had long-term campsites there directed me to the falls and were very nice people. The marker I have on the map should be pretty close to where they actually are located.

Composition

While I was there, I tried to be very efficient and not take longer than I needed. I only took about 15 bracketed shots while I was there and quickly got in my car and left. The water was high when I was there so I might have gotten a different shot than most. Once at the falls, I found the water to be pretty low and I was able to stand right in the middle of the river with my rain boots on.

The falls are really photogenic, especially with the large slab of rock protruding out on the right hand side. I haven’t shot any waterfalls like this that were so three-dimensional. I imagined it to be like a mini Triple Falls in Glacier National Park. For my composition, I tried to get as low as possible and to also include the rock ledge in frame. I also took some higher shutter speed shots for the trees as it was windy and the leaves were blowing around quite a bit.

EXIF Information

    Post Processing

    As you can see in the before and after, this photo is pretty post processed. I really love the look of the side ledge rocks and falls! The first thing I did was run my series of 3 bracketed shots through Photomatix. Then I did the same for my high shutter speed shot. After that I blended the trees in over the slower shutter speed shot.

    From there, I did the rest of the editing in Lightroom. After a bit of editing I decided to do a tighter crop to give the rock ledge more space to fill the frame. I tried my best to minimize the trees and left hand side of the image as it was a pretty boring area of the shot.

    Overall, I really like this picture and I’ve been sitting on it for awhile now and I need to just call it done and release it into the wild. Real Artists Ship after all.

    Software Used

    Lightroom
    Photomatix
    Photoshop

    Techniques Used

    Exposure Stacking
    High-Dynamic-Range

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