Letchworth State Park

[Geoff Wittig]

Bored sitting in my hotel room waiting for a review course to start, so I started playing with images shot last year. I forgot about this series; I shot some images to stitch into panos later, but never got around to it 'till this morning.

This is the Genesee River at Letchworth State Park, about 18 miles from my home, taken last October. At mid-day it's crawling with 'leaf-peepers', but early morning you have the entire place to yourself.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Very nice, Geoff: Good colors, composition, and the early morning mists really make it.

Eric

[jasonrandolph]

I'll echo what Eric said.  Nice work.

[John R]

Superb. Love the fall and your shot makes it come alive. Leaf peeping is OK too, if done right.

JMR

[RSL]

Very, very nice, Goeff.

[wolfnowl]

Well done, Geoff.  I'm glad you decided to include that trestle in the background.  It adds an interesting counterpoint to the scene.

Mike.

[Geoff Wittig]

Thanks all for the kind comments.

The trestle is an ancient iron railroad bridge that's still used. Trains cross it on average twice a day at about 4 miles per hour, no doubt with great trepidation on the part of the engineers. It's pretty photogenic in its own right, but unfortunately I haven't been able to combine good lighting with a train on the trestle. It's always one or the other.

I keep trying, though.

[AndrewKulin]

Sweet.

Andrew

[Christos Andronis]

Very nice composition and colors. Well done!

- Christos

[GregW]

Cracking image and one that for me brings back a personal memory of sitting on that bridge when a train came by!

A work assignment saw my; now wife, and I spend 2001 in Rochester NY. We'd decided to go on a hike/picnic and stopped for lunch by the bridge. My wife wanted to get a better view of the valley from the bridge so she suggested sitting on the bridge, insisting that it must be disused. I protested it might not be the case; the rails were shiny not rusty, but to no avail. 20 minutes latter we were greeted by a train that must have taken 10 minutes to cross the NARROW bridge.

[Geoff Wittig]

Cracking image and one that for me brings back a personal memory of sitting on that bridge when a train came by!

Yep.
Especially during summer I see kids climbing up onto this bridge, apparently unaware that trains still use it. Drives me crazy, because the potential for tragedy is so evident.

A few years back, two high school students were killed by a freight train crossing a bridge in one of the Rochester suburbs. They started to flee when the train approached, and one of them got her foot caught. Her friend tried to free her, and both were killed when the train hit them.

[tsjanik]

Hi Geoff:

I live about two hours by car from Letchworth.  I saw your post and thought the view was very familiar.  Not surprising, since I’ve been there several times, but something was too familiar, so I checked some files from April of this year and found the shot attached.  I like yours much better, but I thought you might enjoy the coincidence and others now know how it looked several months later.  No great shots for me that day, but it was a wonderful visit to the Park in late April and the day held the promise of summer (which never really arrived, as you know).

Tom

[Geoff Wittig]

Hi Geoff:

I live about two hours by car from Letchworth.  I saw your post and thought the view was very familiar.  Not surprising, since I’ve been there several times, but something was too familiar, so I checked some files from April of this year and found the shot attached.  I like yours much better, but I thought you might enjoy the coincidence and others now know how it looked several months later.  No great shots for me that day, but it was a wonderful visit to the Park in late April and the day held the promise of summer (which never really arrived, as you know).

Tom

This spot is named Inspiration Point, for obvious reasons. Looking straight down the canyon, you see both the middle and upper falls of the Genesee river, with the old railroad bridge above. You can walk the trail along the edge of the gorge for different viewpoints, though trees now obscure a lot of the view except in winter.

It's a pretty difficult spot to shoot in sunny weather because of the insane dynamic range between sunlit and shadowed sides of the gorge, almost as soon as the sun clears the horizon. The exception is late winter; if there's enough snow & ice, the fill light from reflections makes it doable. In late afternoon the sun actually comes straight down the canyon so you can get some very interesting lighting. Problem is, our winter weather tends to be so cloudy you may get only one or two days a year where everything comes together. And last winter it never stayed cold long enough for anything to freeze.

Which just gives me a reason to keep going back looking for perfect light.