I made my first visit to the legendary Pewit’s Nest this fall and was lucky that I was the only person there for the first hour and a half. From what I’ve read online, the place has been basically ‘loved to death’ the last couple years after it was made famous online via one of those ‘places you haven’t heard of in your state’ type articles that made their way around social media.

Location

Pewit’s Nest is located on the edge of the city of Baraboo which is nearby Devil’s Lake State Park. This part of Wisconsin is nice from a geological perspective as there are a lot of rock cliffs and water around. The parking lot could maybe hold 10-15 cars so make sure you arrive early. I woke up at 5am and arrive at 7am. I wanted to make sure I was there early to avoid too many bright spots and shadows from the sun poking through the trees. I also wanted to have the place to myself. Fortunately it was overcast and a bit rainy so I didn’t run into anyone right away. After about an hour and a half some kids came in making noise like they tend to do, and it wasn’t as nice anymore.

Once out of your car, it’s only maybe a 100 yard walk into the woods. For this shot, I walked up the hill and took a right towards the water. I then perched myself out on a rock ledge that overlooked the three drops in the falls. It seemed like the water was a little higher when I was there vs some of the pictures I’ve seen online of it.

Composition

I wanted to get the traditional shot first when I was there. This consists of going out on a small rock ledge that overlooks the canyon. Some of the pictures online use a longer lens like a 70 or 90mm and then crop out the first set of falls and are usually vertical shots. This will give your picture more of a canyon feel. For mine, I went wider to include the first set of larger falls. I tried a couple shots with the falls to the left and right, but ultimately the shots with the falls right up the middle felt the best. I snapped away 2 sets of 3 exposures at -2, 0 and +2ev, one with the foreground in focus and another with the background in focus.

I had brought my ND filters along like I usually do when I take waterfalls pictures, but it was so cloudy out and the canyon is so dark that my polarizer was already pushing me into 6-10 second exposures, a first for me.

Another trick I used that I haven’t in the past is I took some leaves that were laying around the area and threw them in the foreground. I’ve noticed other photographers doing this and thought it was a good idea to give some foreground interest. Sine I was in early October, the leaves hadn’t quite fallen like some pictures you seen online so I still wanted it to have that fall feel to it. I suppose this could be considered cheating, but my conscious is clean.

Post Processing

I will admit, I processed the heck out of this image. I think I might have spent 10+ hours on it spanning 2 weeks. I decided to process this one a bit different than some of mine in the past opting for a much more dark look. I purposely left 100% black areas of my photo by pulling down the blacks and highlights and using a very heavy vignette.

As far as software goes, I first ran it through Photomatix, then I focus stacked my foreground and background images so everything was in focus. After that I finished up editing in Lightroom using A LOT of adjustment brushes. I was very picky on this image as Pewit’s Nest has been photographed so many times that I didn’t want it to be just another run of the mill shot of the place. I wanted it to be better. Thanks for reading!

Software Used

Lightroom

Photomatix

Photoshop

Techniques Used

Focus Stacking

High-Dynamic-Range

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