Ramona Falls

Author's Comments

Most waterfalls fall. Ramona spreads. That is the difference, and it is the entire reason you make the seven mile loop to stand in front of it. The basalt face is a fan of stacked columns covered in moss, and the water does not so much pour over it as disperse into hundreds of thin braids that catch light independently. From any distance it reads almost like a textile. Up close it reads like nothing else I have photographed on Mount Hood. Late July through September is the window. The Sandy River crossing earlier in the year is genuinely dangerous, and even when the log bridges are in, the meltwater can run high and fast enough to turn you back. By August the river has settled and the trail through old-growth Douglas fir on the way in is one of the great approaches in the Cascades. Quiet. Cathedral-like. Worth slowing down for even though you came for the falls. Morning is when the face is in shade and the water can hold detail without blowing out. A long exposure works here, but I would resist the temptation to smooth everything into silk. The texture is the photograph. A half-second exposure keeps the individual streams legible while still suggesting movement, and that is closer to what your eye actually sees standing there. Bring a polarizer for the moss. Bring a longer lens for the detail shots of single columns where the water threads down in patterns that look almost deliberate. The wide shot is the obvious frame. The detail shots are the ones I keep going back to.

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