Dream In Color

Yeah, I did a lot today if you can’t tell by the title. It’s been a long one.

Brian and I left this morning around 9:30 and headed for backwoods Arkansas in hopes to take some great photographs. I must say that I’m not at all disappointed in the shots I got. I’m finally learning the new camera and it’s starting to show in my photography.

The first up for the trip was Goose Pond, near Atkins, AR. This place is a nice little spot, tucked away where most people would never look. It’s a bit of a bushwhack off of Interstate 40 and something a bit different from what I usually shoot. Goose Pond is a small marsh located in the Ed Gordon Point Remove Wildlife Management Area near Atkins ( that’s a lot to say ). It’s a small plot of low lying land that is flooded and provides a habitat for frogs and birds that reside in the area. There is definitely not a shortage of frogs! I probably saw about 100 while I was there, if you’re ever in the frog catching mood that is the place to be The photos…

First shot we have today is of a cypress knee at Goose Pond. The water was covered in small lilypads that made for an interesting green texture to the top of the water. It also provided a nice place for the frogs to hide while we were stomping around their house.

The “lilypads” up close. Not exactly sure what to call them, they look like small lilypads to me.

A better shot of the texture of the water.

The next attraction of the day was Bayou Bluff Campground. The Bayou Bluff Campground lies about 4 miles north of Hector, Arkansas. It’s a nice little spot to go fishing and possibly swimming in warmer weather. The water is a crystal blue color. I didn’t get any decent shots of the water, but I did get some good shots of some of the plant life around it.

The first photo is a view of some of the colors we are getting this time of year. I especially like the texture of leaves like this.

The next photo is a test with my new 50mm F/1.8 lens. I shot this acorn at an fstop of 1.8 and got this great blur surrounding it while the acorn was left sharp.

The next is one of my favorite shots of the day, I love the color of the bokeh and the softness of the wheat.

Following Bayou Bluff, Bryan Cormack and I took a bit of an 80 mile detour. We left Bayou Bluff with the hopes of arriving at Pedestal Rocks about 30 minutes later. However… the road had different things in mind. For some strange reason Bryan and I both completely missed the HUGE signs pointing to Witts Spring which is where we were supposed to go.

Therefore, we went about 40 miles out of the way to Clinton, Arkansas… I didn’t even know we were that close to Clinton but we soon realized the mistake when we saw the Clinton city limit sign. We were both in utter shock that we had completely missed the turn. It would have been nice if we had taken a map, which I usually do. However, I had forgotten about taking a map and the road didn’t help either. There were no signs marked for city mileage or anything. So off we went, on an hour detour.

We arrived in Clinton and laughed at the experience. It wasn’t all for nought though, we stopped at a gas station and proceeded to purchase some much needed munchies for the hour trip back up to Pedestal Rocks, which was our next destination…

This is one of the first shots of the actual trip. We had planned all along to go to Pedestal Rocks & King’s Bluff. The bluff was definitely interesting, I got a picture looking down from my perspective to the ground far below.

While Brian and I were perusing the sights, we came across this rather large praying mantis. It was colored just like the rock upon which it was sitting.

This is one of the Pedestal rocks that are abundant on the trails. This one was on the King’s Bluff side.

Another of the Pedestal rocks along the King’s Bluff Trail. I didn’t get many of the rocks like this on the Pedestal Rocks side. It was getting late in the day and we wanted to get shots of Falling Water Creek. I’ll have to make the trip back up there some day next week and get down into the Pedestal Rocks area where there are some pretty neat looking rocks like this one.

The next destination after Pedestal Rocks & King’s Bluff was Falling Water Creek. We wanted to get here around the time of day where shadow falls on everything, the perfect time for photos. So off we went. We arrived at Falling Water Creek at the perfect time and the next few shots are some of the best of the day. I hope you enjoy!

First, Brian spotted this pond with a great reflection off of the side of the road. So we stopped… in the middle of the road, to take some photos Being as we were out in the middle of nowhere I figured there wouldn’t be anybody to come run us off the road. However, as fate always does, somebody started heading down the road as soon as I got out of the car. Doh!

We stopped down the road a bit further near this small house that was literally right off of the road. Beside the house was a small barn and beside the barn was this tall wheat growing.

This is where the photos start getting good. Falling Water Creek is a great place to get some amazing waterfall shots. Not only that, during warmer times in the year it is a great place to swim. Here is the waterfall at the swimming hole on Falling Water Creek.

Here is the same falls from above.

Here is just a numerous waterscape that can be found at Falling Water Creek.

While I was walking to get another perspective of the waterfall I noticed the difference in color in the leaves. I like the contrast between light and dark.

This is one of my favorite shots from Falling Water Creek. I really liked the green moss against the dark rocks; again it’s that contrast thing

This is probably my best shot of the day. The Falling Water Creek falls is perfectly framed above a smaller waterfall downstream.

Another good one of the falls. I was just to the right of Brian, who was taking shots from behind the falls. I can’t wait to see how those turned out.

Same as above, just a different orientation.

I noticed the way the water was pooling in the bottom of this image from a different shot. I decided to stick around in this spot and get a couple of images to show it. However, I really like how the colors came out in this one, Gray to Brown to Blue.

This is the view you would see, right before you take the plunge. Of course today was way to cold for that, but during the summer it’s really fun jumping off of here.

And last shot of the day. More of the same logs across the creek, which is just 180 degrees behind the previous shot.

Brian and I have some great adventures when we head out. Subscribe to the site and you can keep up to date on these numerous occasions and view some interesting photography at the same time.

Thanks for stopping by and viewing this series!

An explore page for each destination will be added tomorrow.