The Glade Creek Grist Mill, located in Babcock State Park, is a West Virginia icon. Photographing the mill in the fall takes a bit of planning and luck. You have to factor in four key elements: peak fall color, water levels, light, and crowds. For the timing of fall color, keep an eye on facebook pages for the park, or call the park office. For water, hope that it rains in the days before your visit. For smaller crowds, visit on a weekday. And for light, twilight periods or overcast days are best.
The view above is the most common, and arguably most beautiful, composition for the mill. The choice spot for taking this image is about 150 yards downstream on the far bank of the creek. Your focal length will be around 85 mm, so a medium zoom lens will work well. Due to the longer focal length, your composition will compress the reflection, waterfall, mill, and fall foliage into a seamless layered image. A long exposure setting will smooth out the water and a graduated neutral density filter placed over the trees will lighten and bring out the colors reflecting in the water. This shot was taken during morning twilight. You have to get here early in the fall, even on weekdays, as the prime spots along the bank are limited and fill up fast. I had to get low underneath the field of view of others photographers to find a spot. Setting up your tripod and camera on the edge of the retaining wall in this manner is not for the faint of heart (it’s about a 15 foot drop, so keep good situational awareness for yourself and your gear).
Nice compositions can also be made from the bank directly across from the mill. For images here, a wide angle zoom lens works well (20-30 mm focal length). A four to six stop neutral density filter will help slow down your shutter speed and smooth out the water and reflections.
If you shoot from this area after sunrise, you will have challenges with contrast between the sky, sunlight on the trees, and shady areas. If you want to include the tops of the trees and the sky, you will need to shoot multiple exposures for both highlights and shadow areas. For the images below, I wanted to capture the sunlight on the trees and the warm glow it was creating on the water below, along with some clouds in the sky. I took two exposures for each image to capture the range of light and ensure a sharp focus from front to back, and manually blended them in photoshop. While this type of image making takes more work, the results will stand out from other images you will see online.
If you don’t want to put that level of effort into getting this type of image, the newest generation of camera phones are now exceptional at capturing high contrast scenes. The image below was shot with my IPHONE 11. While it lacks the resolution of my Canon full frame mirrorless R5, it does a better job of capturing the dynamic range of the scene in a single exposure.
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