Here’s a shot I got from underneath Fonferek Falls in Green Bay, WI. I was just to the falls yesterday, but this particular shot was from about a month ago. There was a week straight where the temperatures got really warm for February in Wisconsin (50 degrees) and that caused most of the snow to melt. It also caused the falls to thaw out and starting flowing again. I’ve spent the last year trying to shoot Fonferek, but every time I went there it was either dry or frozen so this was an exciting trip for me. Exciting enough that I even took some vacation time at work to visit them.

Location

The falls are located near Green Bay Wisconsin. Like I said earlier they are frequently dry so it’s best to visit them in the spring or after a heavy rain. I recently invested in some NRS Dry Pants and wet shoes which have been helpful during my visits because Bower Creek is like a crazy flooded river when it’s flowing.

I also captured a video while I was here –

Composition

This isn’t my first shot behind the falls, so as far as the camera angle goes, it’s pretty similar to my other attempts. I tried to include the full arch of the cave area on the right hand side to show how big it is. Another thing with these behind the falls shots is it really tests the dynamic range of your camera. Usually you can’t do it with a single exposure so you have to use bracketed shots.  For this one I did a -3, 0 & +3 for my exposure bracketing. I also took another set of shots without my ND filter to get more definition of the falls since my previous set of bracketed shots was around 15 seconds. Finally, I took another set of shots with the focus set on the foreground.

Post Processing

I first ran all 3 sets of bracketed shots through Photomatix to even out the exposure. After that I did my focus blending in Photoshop. After that I used my faster shutter speed stack to blend in just the falls area of the shot. After this, I did the rest of the edits in Lightroom using adjustment brushes.

Software Used

Lightroom

Photomatix

Photoshop

Techniques Used

Focus Stacking

High-Dynamic-Range

Have a Question?