Tag Archives: state park

Small Cascade

Posted by Mike on

Robert H. Treman State Park

This is the week of my plant’s shutdown. Every year they schedule one but it has been quite a few years since they actually followed through and gave all but the maintenance crew the week off. Luckily Monday and Friday are holidays so I only have to consume three vacation days.

I decided to take this mid-year vacation as a sign for me to explore more of New York’s state parks. After the success of my state park trips last year I went ahead and purchased the New York Empire Passport which allows me entry into just about every state park until March 31st next year. With three visits already under my belt, I am a third of the way to paying back the cost of the passport. This was a great investment for me… 🙂

On Monday I journeyed down to Ithaca to visit Robert H. Treman State Park which is just a few miles south of the city. From what I had read on the park site there would be some opportunities for waterfall images along the 4 mile round trip hike. What I didn’t get from the site was the fact that even the gorge trail ventured up into the top of the gorge in the steep narrow sections. I got quite the workout. I arrived right at 9am which was a good thing as the temps reached 85+ by midday. I was in the park for a little over three hours as stopping with the camera to capture images does tend to slow me down.

I’ll sprinkle in the pictures as I process some of my favorites but will try not to overload everyone… 😉

Small Cascade Nikon D5100, Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5, 0.5s, 24mm, f/18, ISO 100

Small Cascade
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5, 0.5s, 24mm, f/18, ISO 100

Green with Envy

Posted by Mike on

What a great couple of days! I took my daughter down to Binghamton, NY for her college orientation (did I mention the quiet house in a month!) and spent the two days exploring the gorges and waterfalls around Ithaca, NY. I haven’t had much time to go through the images yet, but this is one of my favorites from Monday. I had an amazing time walking the gorge trail in Buttermilk Falls State Park. The area above the main falls is absolutely beautiful. I had to force myself to keep exploring or I would never have made it to the main falls.

Green with Envy Nikon D5100 Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (0.8, 2, 5s bracket), 38mm, f/20, ISO 100

Green with Envy
Nikon D5100 Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (0.8, 2, 5s bracket), 38mm, f/20, ISO 100

Pixley Falls

Posted by Mike on

We attempted to explore Pixley Falls State Park on Saturday but we were unable to beat the rain to the park. My daughter and I drove up hoping the rain would hold off. We entered the park just as the rain began. We waited for about 30 minutes but there didn’t appear to be a break coming, so we drove back home.

Pixley Falls is about 25 minutes from my house up Route 46 between Rome and Boonville, NY. There are numerous trails for exploring and quite a few secondary streams producing plenty of photographic opportunities. Obviously ,the main attraction is the big waterfall.

Pixley Falls Front
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/40, 1/10, 1/2.5s bracket), 24mm, f22, ISO 100

Pixley Falls Side
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/40, 1/10, 1/2.5s bracket), 17mm, f22, ISO 100

After some exploring we found this small stream which had a lot of potential. If it hadn’t just rained we would have been able to go farther upstream which had even more dramatic areas with small waterfalls. But, the rain had softened the ground and made navigating off-trail a little slippery. That will definitely be for another day.

Pixley Falls Tributary
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/8, 1/2, 2s bracket), 24mm, f22, ISO 100

I didn’t have a chance to investigate the area prior to driving up so I guessed at 4pm as the optimal time to photograph the waterfall. I knew from a visit last fall that the waterfall would be deep within the trees and very early or late day sun would be out of the question. As you can see from these pictures, there are quite a lot of shadows from the trees even at 4pm. My next visit this summer will be around 10am to see if I can get the sun lighting the waterfall better.

Chittenango Falls

Posted by Mike on

My daughter spent a few days with her grandma and tonight after work I had to drive to Cortland, NY to pick her up. On the way back I asked if she was in a hurry to get home and luckily she wasn’t. We took a quick detour to Chittenango Falls State Park between Cazenovia and Chittenango on Route 13. As I was driving there the sunset was producing some amazing light, unfortunately, it didn’t hold until we arrived. Still, not too bad of conditions to capture a few pictures before we continued home.

Chittenango Falls
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/10, 0.4, 1.6s bracket), 32mm, f22, ISO 200