Tahquamenon Falls, Michigan's Upper Peninsula

I'm going to promote my state again. This time around it's Tahquamenon Falls on the Tahquamenon River in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The falls is located in the middle of a beautiful hardwood forest just north east of Newberry and due west of Paradise (yes, that's an actual town). The falls sits right in the middle of the Hiawatha National Forest. Although most of the forest is hardwood and some birch, along the river is almost all Cedar, Spruce and Hemlock.

The falls has a drop of nearly 50 feet and is more than 200 feet across. A maximum flow of more than 50,000 gallons of water per second has been recorded cascading over these falls. Long before the white man set eyes on the river, the abundance of fish in its waters and animals along its shores attracted the Ojibwa Indians, who camped, farmed, fished and trapped along its banks. In the late 1800's the lumber industry found it's way up to northern Michigan and the Tahquamenon River carried its logs by the millions to the mills. Lumberjacks, who harvested the tall timber, were among the first permanent white settlers in the area.

Here's a few of my favorite shots...

I took this when i was 17. In early June, this pink fireweed is all over northern MI. Kodak Royal Gold 25. Approximately 2 second exposure on an overcast day.

I used my 400mm Tamron to get up close and isolate a section of the falls. It's kind of an illusion but you are looking at 50ft of drop there. It doesn't look like it. I also used a 4 stop ND because the direct sunlight was too harsh on the face of the falls to slow it down with just my polarizer and create the water motion blur. I wasn't even sure then that it would be long enough of an exposure. The slowest i could get out of my ISO 100 film and my ND4 was was a 3/4 of a second. I think the sheer speed and volume of the water really helped me out on this one. Fuji Superia Reala 100
The amber color of the water is caused by tannins leached from the Cedar, Spruce and Hemlock in the swamps that is drained by the river.

I used my ND4 as well and my polarizer for this one. It was the same bright morning as the one above. 1.5 seconds on Fuji Superia Reala 100

Winter.... Kodak Royal Gold 25

Nearby within the forest. 1st week of October. Fuji Superia Reala 100 and polarizer.

This was a fun one... If you catch Tahquamenon Falls early enough in the morning, you can catch this awesome light. There's enough open space in front of the falls that the early morning light comes in almost horizontally from the east, blasts the face of the falls and just touches the front of the rapids casting shadows behind them for just a few minutes. ND4, Fuji Superia Reala 100, 1.5 second exposure

Just beautiful Karl thank you for sharing the seasons with us

Stunning. Shows your talent for this as well as the time and effort you put into it.

The photos are stunning, all of them, the history was interesting and added to the thread and the camera info was helpful, thanks for sharing Karl

Thanks... I try to keep it fun and interesting with some local info of the area.