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John Caplis Photography

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Photographing Elk in the Fall, Benezette, PA

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The Benezette area of Pennsylvania is home to a large herd of wild elk.   The period from mid-September to early October is a great time to photograph the elk, as they are active with their rutting season, and there is some fall color to spice up their surroundings. 

There are a number of viewing areas where food has been planted for the elk to graze on, so chances are good for seeing at least a few elk in these locations.  Elk are most active in the early morning hours around sunrise, and in the late afternoon hours leading up to sunset.  We had the most luck locating elk at the viewing areas near the Elk Country Visitor Center and near Winslow Hill.  

The elk at the Visitor Center were usually on the opposite side of the fields from the designated walking areas used for viewing, so you will mostly likely need a long telephoto lens here.  For this location, I used my Canon R7 crop sensor camera with an adaptor, an EF 500 f4 Mk II L lens, and a 1.4x teleconverter, which worked pretty well.    With an effective focal length of 1120 mm, I could fill the frame with my elk subject that was standing across the field, and still keep my aperture at f5.6 or f6.3.

 

 

Here are a few images taken from the Visitor Center location:

This Bull Elk was standing in the early morning sun in front of a tree line that was still in deep shadow.  The resulting black background really made the subject stand out.  (1/1250 sec, f6.3, ISO 800)

 

Bull elk bugling in the red glow of sunset. (1/400 sec, f5.6, ISO 1600)

 

Bull elk rounding up his female companions and their young. (1/1600 sec, f6.3, ISO 800)

 

Bull elk at evening twilight in front of some colorful trees.  Taken with the R7 and the 500 mm f4 lens.  (1/320 sec, f4, ISO 3200).  I did not use the teleconverter as this elk was closer to us and it was fast getting dark out.  This allowed me to get the most out of the excellent light gathering capabilities of the f4 lens at its maximum aperture.

 

This is the only elk that is guaranteed to be there all of the time for photos.  Otherwise seeing elk at each viewing area is “hit or miss”.   Nice spot for a group photo though…

We also had good luck seeing elk at the Winslow Hill viewing area in the fields along Dewey Road.  There is a small parking area on the side of the road which adjoins to a gravel/dirt road that allows you to have a closer view of any elk that are passing through these fields.     

Besides being able to get a bit closer to the elk, there was also more color in the fields and on the trees at this location:  

This bull elk was bedded down about 50 feet off the roadway.   It was our closest encounter with an elk.  It was shot handheld with a R7 crop sensor camera and a 100-500 mm lens zoomed out to 500 mm.  Effective focal distance is 800 mm (1/320 sec, f7.1, ISO 1000).

 

Bull elk with some fall color.  Taken with a full frame Canon R5, adaptor, and the EF 500 mm f4.  (1/2000 sec, f7.1, ISO 1250)

 

Two bull elk at sunrise with backlit fog at the top of the hill along Rucki Road.  Taken handheld with the R5 and 500 mm f4.   (1/2500, f6.3, ISO 3200) 

 

Elk in a field of goldenrod near Rucki Road during late afternoon.  The light on this elk and goldenrod was just amazing.  Much of the time he was facing away from the sun, so I had to wait for key moments when he would turn to look the other way.  Taken with my R5, EF 500 mm f4 and a 1.4x teleconverter on a tripod   Effective focal distance was 700 mm (1/640 sec, f5.6, ISO 250).

 

This bull elk paused for a moment to soak up the late afternoon sun at Rucki Road.  The background color and lighting on the elk made this one of my favorite images from the trip.  Taken with my R5, EF 500 mm f4 and a 1.4x teleconverter on a tripod   Effective focal distance was 700 mm, but I also cropped in on this photo to make a more intimate animal portrait (1/1250 sec, f5.6, ISO 250).

Ten Planning Tips for Photographing Elk in the Benezette area of Pennsylvania

  1. Use a long telephoto lens and stay a safe distance from these beautiful but wild animals! A small pair of binoculars may also come in handy for spotting elk.
  2. For most places, you should plan on using a sturdy tripod with a sturdy ballhead (or a gimball head if you have one). Capturing memorable images of the elk can definitely become a waiting game that requires patience.  You don’t want to be handholding a long lens the entire time while you are waiting for the moment to happen.
  3. Plan to rise early and stay out late. Best opportunities to see the elk in favorable lighting is around sunrise to early morning, and late afternoon to just past sunset.  Fast telephoto lenses with larger apertures will help.
  4. Seeing elk at any of the viewing areas is always a “hit or miss” affair. Expect that you will have to drive around to different places until you find elk activity.  The road gate to the visitor center is usually locked at night and does not open until around 7:30 or 8:00 am.  I recommend you start your search at sunrise at Winslow Hill or one of the other areas first, and then head to the visitor center if nothing is happening at those areas. 
  5. Visiting in October is less likely to have rutting behavior, but more likely to have some color in the surroundings. Visiting in mid to late September will have more rutting activity with the bulls, but less color.  You have to decide what is more of a priority for the images you want to make during your visit.  I was hoping to catch some bulls jousting antler to antler, but never saw it.  I think I was there too late (Oct 7-9) to capture this behavior.  We did see good color in the area.
  6. If you go in October, dress in layers and bring some warm clothes. It was in the 30’s in the early morning hours, but very comfortable in the afternoons.
  7. I recommend booking your lodging six months or more in advance. Lodging is very limited in this area, and gets booked up very quickly.  If you wait, you will only have the least desirable places to choose from.   We tried booking about two-three months out, and almost everything was gone.  We ended up staying in the Benezette Hotel in Benezette.   It is conveniently located very near the elk viewing areas (15 minutes away), but I don’t really recommend this place unless you like to rough it.  It can be very noisy late at night with loud music in the bar downstairs, the rooms are very small and spartan, and you also share two bathrooms with about 10 other rooms.  I think the hotels in St Mary’s, which is a further drive away (30-40 minutes), may be a better option, depending upon your need for creature comforts.
  8. There are not many dining options around Benezette. The only place we saw open was the restaurant at the Benezette Hotel, which was always crowded, and the food was ok.  Expect long waiting lines on weekends.  St Marys will have more choices for food. 
  9. Allow yourself a couple of days in order to get some good elk viewing opportunities in good light. You only need a few of these to make the trip a success!  
  10. Hearing bull elk make their bugle calls is a haunting, but unforgettable experience.

Related Images:

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Intimate Abstracts of Fall in Motion

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Intimate landscapes focus on a small portion of a scene.   Abstract images often obscure the obvious details of the subject, creating a more impressionistic or emotional rendering.  Combining these elements can also lead to something that allows the viewer to ponder what was photographed…and how it was made.   

 

Here we take the abstract process one step further by adding an element of motion, in this case the swift passage of leaves through the reflection of a beautiful tree.  Using a longer exposure time (6 seconds), the drifting leaves added wispy streaks of color weaving through the image.

  

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Fall Sunrise on the Tidal Basin

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The Tidal Basin in the District of Columbia is world famous for it’s  yoshino cherry blossoms in the spring.   But did you know that the leaves on these trees turn a brilliant reddish-orange color in the fall?   Sunrise in the fall is a beautiful time to experience the splendor of these cherry trees without the overwhelming crowds.

 

Morning sunrise at the Jefferson Memorial.

 

More trees along the Tidal Basin…

 

The walk approaching the Martin Luther King (MLK) Memorial.

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Autumn Fog in Canaan Valley

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The Highlands of West Virginia is often shrouded in fog on fall mornings.   The combination of fall foliage and fog creates some exciting opportunities for photography.   For my fall trip to Canaan Valley this year, I decided to explore the intersection of color, shapes, and light created within this fleeting microcosm of morning fog.

      

The first rays of the sun peak over the mountain tops into the fog in Canaan Valley State Park.

  

Warm light bathes “the tree”, which has become almost iconic with photographers frequenting the area for photography in the fall.  The intense light passing through the fog creates a pleasing minimalist atmosphere for accentuating a few tree shapes.

  

An orange maple shrouded in fog and soft morning light. 

 

As the fog began to dissipate, a rare “fog bow” appeared.   Also called a “white rainbow” or “ghost bow”, a fog bow is essentially a rainbow that appears in foggy conditions, but has water droplets in the air that are too small to reflect or refract light waves that would be perceived as colors with our eyes.   It was a true blessing to observe, let alone photograph, this unusual weather phenomenon.

 

The first rays of sun illuminate the top of a fog layer in Canaan Valley off Cortland Road. 

 

 

 

Sun kissed fog accentuates the shape of a grazing horse on a farm off Cortland Road in Canaan Valley.

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Photographing the Glade Creek Grist Mill

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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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Bear Rocks Sunrise in the Fall

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Capturing fall color is one of my favorite subjects in landscape photography.  One of my “wish list” fall images has always been to capture sunrise at Bear Rocks when the heathland has turned to crimson red.   The Bear Rocks Preserve is a series of rocky outcroppings along the Allegheny Front, an escarpment in West Virginia that forms part of the Eastern Continental Divide.  Located at 4000 feet, it enjoys 2000 feet of vertical rise from the valleys to the east, and features a subalpine ecosystem of tundra like plants and stunted red spruce trees.  My vision was to capture the ridge line of white sandstone rocks surrounded by glowing red huckleberry bushes, with golden trees on the mountainside leading down to the foggy valleys below.   

 

 

Challenges include getting to this remote location in the Dolly Sods Wilderness when the foliage is peaking, picking a morning with the right weather conditions, and navigating the rocks to pick a spot in the dark that has the elements you are looking for in your photograph (along with the rising sun).  I found The Photograper’s Ephemeris (TPE) app in virtual reality mode to be helpful in estimating the location of sunrise in my image frame.  This image is a blend of several exposures in order to control the high dynamic range of contrast between the sky and foreground, as well as capturing the best lighting on the foliage across the scene.  Using a very small aperture (f22) for the sky gives you a very appealing sun burst, while using f16 for the foreground gives you a good depth of field for focus and while keeping good sharpness on the landscape.  Finally, you have to get up very early and dress very warm, but the view is definitely worth it!

 

 

 

Related Images:

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