Ricketts Glen, Outdoor Camping and Silky Water

A friend was able to convince (force) the wife and I to take a three-plus hour drive to do some hiking and waterfalls-sight-seeing. So, after driving for some 170 miles, the longest one-time drive I have taken so far, we arrived at Ricketts Glen State Park. The wife and I are not really outdoorsy type of people, though the wife said she had done some camping when she was in Girl Scout. I like having my TV, Macbook Pro (with wifi, of course), my coffee maker, fridge and bed close at hand as much as possible. This is the reason why I said that it took some forcing and cajoling for me to agree to take the trek. Good thing there was a cabin though some people in our group slept in their tents.


Anyway, I took the most out of this experience by doing some silky water shots. I set up on the bank of the water stream and took my time in making the shots.

Here you can see me with my Benro tripod and ballhead plus my trusty Lowepro flipside 300

I took some shots and I'd like to show you some:

There were a lot of waterfalls, big and small. The wife and I saw about 7 of them.

I'm also practicing my "people" lighting. I think this is loop lighting, according to  David Ziser.

Being a former Earth Science teacher, I really admired the sedimentary rock formations there.

The wife and I were late in going to the state park. So, after hiking for some time, the wife and I met with our friends and we started going back to camp. The park closed at sunset.

To cap the day, our friends started a bonfire, grilled burgers, hotdogs, some fish and mallows. We talked for a few good hours, exchanged life stories, played some cards, then slept.

We would have gone back to see some more waterfalls the next day but it was raining a little too hard. So we just decided to go back to our respective houses and just meet again under more normal circumstances.


Perhaps there is hope for me and the outdoors. I enjoyed my time looking at the rock and water formations and was in awe of how nature works. I was also a physics teacher in a previous "life" so I am greatly fascinated to see the natural laws at work. But I also enjoyed myself, most probably, because I was able to take my pictures.


And as a parting note, the video below was taken by the wife. She is the one in charged of the motion capture. She noticed that there was another couple where we were and she noticed that the guy also had a DSLR in hand. If you look at the 17sec mark of the video, the guy was also using a Lowepro Flipside 300 backpack! And before I put my tripod down to make my shots, I also had my tripod attached to my flipside. Goes to show how good the Lowepro brand is! The guy was using a blue flipside and when I took a peek, I saw that he was also using the same Benro tripod that I was using. Talk about coincidence! The main difference was, he was using a Nikon. I'm not very familiar with the Nikon brand so I can't tell you what model he was using. I also don't know if we are using the same ballhead.


You can see me, in action, at around the 21sec mark with my trusty Yankee cap, of course.