Middle Falls, Letchworth St. Pk.

     Winter is my favorite time of year to make imagery, researching locations for the winter of 2026 I came across an image I made back in 2022. Back in 2021 I had entered a lottery to be a “volunteer” to bottle bourbon at the Garrison Brothers distillery in Hye, TX. I could write an entire Story Behind just on that experience alone, however, the Photo Arts Xchange is happening in just about 5 weeks and my time is more focused on printing new imagery to share during that April 10 & 11th weekend.

     That lottery entry bore fruit and I was awarded two days in mid February 2022. Our eldest son lives in Austin TX about an hours drive from the distillery. So a drive to Austin TX in early February would align perfectly with winter time imagery in western New York state. In researching waterfalls and potential serious ice formations I came across Letchworth State Park, also known as, “The Grand Canyon of the East”. The first two nights my wife and I would spend in a small town that would provide early morning access to Middle Falls in Letchworth St Pk where this month’s image was made. Letchworth St. Pk has close to 50 waterfalls with three main falls within the 17 mile long Gorge. The Genesee River flows through a glacier carved gorge with massive cliffs abruptly rising to near 600 ft in places.  Upper, Middle and Lower Falls are the most prominent, with the middle falls being the largest.

    As seen in the accompanying video my vantage point from an overlook of the Middle Falls. What attracted me to make this particular image were the vertical lines of the jagged ice formations within the horizontal format of the 5×7 camera, all of which were essentially at a 45 degree angle to what the viewer would be viewing in the final horizontal photograph. The geometry of opposing lines and the heavy textures of the ice for the eye to follow along and enjoy, the image falls short of my initial attraction to setup the camera in a lightly falling snow. In the end the image is much more about the enormity and wonderment of mother nature than any master stroke of creativity. Over the years I have rarely chosen to make final prints where snow is a major part of the image. I love the textures that ice can create, snow on the other hand, without some semblance of side lighting snow has little to no texture and most times does not rise to my standard of portfolio worthy art.

     Nevertheless, being out in the wintertime elements with a lightly falling snow bearing witness to the grandeur of mother nature makes for a rewarding morning.