Niagara Escarpment Waterfalls

Grindstone Falls

A couple of weeks ago I decided to take a break from my springtime frog photography and spend a day doing landscapes. I hadn’t been out to do fresh landscape imagery for awhile so it felt great to get out. We have been having much rainfall this year and on another drizzly day I ventured out to the city of Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton is known as the “waterfall capital of the world” with close to 100 waterfalls listed. Many of these waterfalls are merely the result of spring run-off cascading down the Niagara Escarpment, however, there are many substantial waterfalls to photograph. It is best to photograph these waterfalls during the spring as they will have nice flow. Usually by mid to late summer they dry up, but with the amount of rain southern Ontario has been having I think they will remain quite photogenic for longer this year. I found some of the falls to have too much flow, making it impossible to capture the scene I really wanted, due to excessive mist coming off the falls. In situations like this I often head up to the crest of the falls and shoot down river. When I need to shoot in the mist I use a clear plastic bag over my camera. I can compose my compositions and adjust my polarizer filter to my liking through this bag. When ther is a lull in the mist being cast I will take the bag off, quickly focus and trip the shutter. I then dry off any water drops from the polarizer filter and am ready to go again.

Webster’s Falls

Webster’s Falls is found in the Spencer Gorge Wilderness Area. It is hard to believe that you are only a stone’s throw away from a city of 500,000 people when you visit Webster’s Falls. This is the most impressive waterfall in Hamilton. Right now it has substantial flow and is well worth visiting.

Tews Falls

Tews Falls, on Logie’s Creek,  is also found in the Spencer Gorge Wilderness Area. Next to the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara, Tews Falls is the highest waterfall in southern Ontario with a height of 42 metres. Logie’s creek is a very shallow river so this waterfall will be reduced to a trickle or dry-up altogether during dry spells.

Tiffany Falls

The best place to shoot Tiffany Falls was to climb up the steep side of the gorge to a spot where there seemed to be little or no mist. The problem here was I could not fit the falls into a pleasing comp with my 12-24mm lens. The solution – shoot a vertical panoramic. I stitched together two horizontal images to give me this wide-vertical composition that includes the elements I wanted in the scene.