Early Morning at the Falls
Dragging my butt out of bed at some ungodly hour was not my idea of fun on a Friday morning. One of the problems of being a landscape photographer is that those ungodly hours are part of the job. And the fact that they are always worth it help me get out of bed at 4:30am today. My friend is a huge waterfall fanatic and has photographed most of the falls that lie in the golden horseshoe except for the one – Niagara Falls. So here we are heading down to the falls to capture what we hoped to be a spectacular sunrise. But sometimes mother nature has her own ideas. As we drive into the town the clouds and pre-dawn light looked very promising. All my pre-dawn shots were absolutely fabulous in colour.
Horseshoe Falls
As the sun came up there was no chance of anything really spectacular happening. A little light peeked through some clouds for all of 5 seconds to give us some God rays and then it was gone.
Niagara Falls from Above
Soon after this everything just started going grey. So we packed up and headed to our second destination of the day, Balls Conservation Area. At this conservation area two waterfalls can be found with about a 15 minute walk of each other. They have also set up a pioneer farm to give people an idea how they lived. We had to keep reminding ourselves that today was Friday and that’s why all the buildings were locked. So no fun interior shots of these. We first headed up to Upper Balls Falls which was a windy uphill hike and made me think I should have brought less gear. Once at the upper falls we scrambled out onto the ledge and started shooting.
Upper Balls Falls
Once we had shot this one to death – I have way too many shots of this, we headed downhill towards the lower falls. Lower Balls Falls is a very easy to get to as the conservation area has made a viewing platform. The only problem is the angle for photography is awful so my friend and I decided to find a way to the bottom of the gorge to get a better shot. After making our way down the Bruce Trail path and onto a side trail we soon found ourselves at the bottom and downriver from our goal. Picking our way along the edge of the river we turned and there was the waterfall plunging into the river. Quickly we set ourselves up and took some shots.
Lower Balls Falls
After spending some time here we made our way back up the valley and homeward. An early day but one filled with some wonderful photographs.