Elowah Falls

Author's Comments

The first time I walked into the amphitheater at Elowah I stopped breathing for a moment. Not from the climb, which is modest, but from the way the space encloses you. The basalt walls rise on three sides in a curve so complete it feels deliberate, and the moss is everywhere, dripping and saturated and so green it reads almost blue in the shade. The falls drop two hundred and thirteen feet into all of this and somehow the water is not the loudest thing in the room. The walls are. Spring is when I prefer it. The volume is high, the moss is at its most electric, and the morning light filters in from above without ever quite reaching the floor of the basin. That shade is a gift. Bring a tripod and shoot long. Two seconds, four seconds, longer if you can hold the frame steady. The water goes silken and the moss stays sharp and the photograph begins to feel like the place actually felt. The upper viewpoint is worth the extra effort if you have the legs for it, but the amphitheater is the photograph. I almost never see other people down there. A few hikers passing through, a fellow photographer once, but mostly it is just the falls and the walls and whatever weather has settled in. Winter works too, when the moss holds its color and the ferns go translucent in the cold. Come early. Stay longer than you planned.

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