Almost exactly a year ago today, I saw my first photo of the Grist Mill at Babcock State Park in West Virginia, and immediately I began to search for a way to make a quick trip out during the month of October at some point in the future. I can't remember if it was here on flickr or on 500PX, but as soon as I saw it, I was hooked. For someone who has been starving for autumn scenes and foliage having grown up here in Southern California literally surrounded by palm trees, this scene just jumped out at me.

So I dug around and found that I had some free airline miles, and then contacted the Appletons who are good friends of mine who live in Loudoun County Virginia and they offered to let me crash at their place for five days. I was also able to get away with only missing one class at the college during what is typically one of the busiest times of the year. As soon as I had it all sorted out, I contacted Mike Besant, who is one of my good friends on flickr, and asked him if he knew of this park and how to get there. He said he was definitely aware of not only this park, but of several spots in West Virginia that would be gorgeous during the month of October.

So I waited....and waited....and finally I set off on October 9th on my quick jaunt through Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Virginia and Maryland were pretty much rained out for all five days, but Mike and I were able to shoot quite a bit of West Virginia on Oct 11-12. I kept shooting for the next two days, mostly in West Virginia and then came home pretty much exhausted but smiling with roughly 3000 frames on my cards. We shot some gorgeous waterfalls, lakes, farms, and long stretches of road, but Babcock was my favorite spot of the trip. There was just something so quintessentially Autumn about this little corner of West Virginia which was well off the beaten path and nearly forgotten by time.


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Tags:   Grist Mill Babcock State Park West Virginia Autumn

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When I woke up last Sunday and it was STILL raining in Round Hill, Virginia, I knew I would have to drive for a while again before I would see the sun. I set off for Deep Creek Lake again up in Northwest Maryland, but after striking out, I turned around and headed back down South to West Virginia. The good news was that a cold front was now moving through and the sky was breaking up due to the wind. The bad news was that as I was shooting an old cemetery in Oakland, MD, the TORNADO SIREN went off. At least that's what I assume it was as we don't really get too many of those out here in Anaheim, CA. After about 20 minutes, the all clear went off and I set off again on my way South.

As I drove through West Virginia with the sun now shining through the broken clouds, I could not stop smiling. The drive down highway 219 was easily one of the most beautiful I have ever taken. Several of the trees were now hitting peak color as I drove through miles of rolling green hills, red barns, and tree covered mountains. When I arrived at Blackwater Falls State Park again, it was already after 4 PM, so I knew my time would be limited. I quickly shot the Falls and Pendleton Point, and then set off for the Lodge. I was just getting ready to shoot the sunset from the Lodge when Mike Besant called and told me I really should get my butt over to Lindy Point if I wanted to shoot a decent sunset in that park. He gave me directions and I set off as quickly as I could as it was now almost 5:30 PM. I glanced up at the sky and knew that the light must be incredible over the gorge, so I half ran for about 15 minutes up the trail with my two cameras and tripod and emerged to find that I certainly was not alone. There had to be 10-15 tripods already set up, and I scrounged around looking for a spot to shoot from.

Now....I like to think that I'm a fairly safe individual, but every once in a while, when I'm looking at something that is truly stunning, most of my good sense disappears and I find myself doing things like hopping over rails and jumping over crevices and standing out on ledges with steep drop offs without really thinking about things like consequences. It was only after one of my fellow photographers suggested that I might want to move back that I realized I was not very far from a 500-1000 foot fall. We all shot for about 15 minutes when suddenly the sun dropped from behind the clouds and completely lit up the autumn colors in the gorge with warm golden hour light and all you could hear were 20 shutters clicking non stop for the next 10 minutes.

After shooting until the sun dropped behind the mountains, most of the crowd took off and left only the hard core crazy people waiting for the sky to light up. And light up it did. :) Before it lit up, I was looking around for another place to shoot from further South, and I found a giant boulder which would work perfectly except for the fact that I would need jump across a deep crevasse with all of my gear. I balked at this point, but another kind photographer offered to hold my D4 and D800 while I jumped across. And I said....yes.

Am I STUPID or what? Fortunately, I didn't die when I jumped across and he didn't run off with my two cameras. I'll post some of my shots hopefully within the next couple of weeks, but when I was walking back to the car later that night, I felt that it had been worth the risk.

But I think I'll try to keep the crevasse jumping to a minimum in the future. And handing over my gear to complete strangers probably isn't such a great idea either. Especially when he's on the other side of that 25 foot deep crevasse.


William McIntosh Photography | 500px | Twitter

Tags:   Lindy Point Black Water State Park West Virginia Autumn Sunset October Leaves Nikkor 28-300 VR

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Last Wednesday night, I set off for a quick five day trip to visit some friends who live in Loudoun County, Virginia. I hadn't been back there while the leaves were changing since 2006, so I was really looking forward to shooting around their neighborhood and perhaps a couple of trips in to Washington DC to shoot the monuments and mall area.

Unfortunately, just as my plane took off, it began to rain. And it rained almost non stop for five days straight. On top of this, the temperatures around Loudoun County had been in the the high 80's for at least two weeks prior, and as a result, hardly any of their leaves had changed. Add to this the fact that some idiots in Washington had just shut down the government and my trip was looking like a total disaster.

On the bright side, I had a rental car that could go about 500 miles on one tank of gas and gas was around $3.20 in Virginia. So I looked my friends Rod and Terry in the eye on Thursday morning and told them I was going to keep driving North until I found some blue sky, even if it meant driving to Canada.

True to my word, I reached Deep Creek Lake up in Maryland after a 2.5 hour drive and it was still a bit murky. I was determined to keep moving North and began to look around on my iphone for ideas. Suddenly, I remembered seeing a gorgeous shot taken by Kurt Miller
just before I left. I knew he had taken it somewhere in Pennsylvania, so I pulled up his flickr account and got the info. His shot was taken at McConnells Mill, which is about an hour North of Pittsburgh. After checking google maps, I found that I could make it in another 2 and 1/2 hours. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was already after 1, but I was pretty sure I could make it before I lost the afternoon light.

I made it to the turn off for McConnells Mill State Park in roughly 3 hours, but that was when things began to go down hill in a hurry. The signage as I left Interstate 79 was VERY clear...for about a mile, and then suddenly there were no signs at all. So I pulled up the iPhone which told me to go down some tiny dirt road called "Cheesecake" or something along those lines. The road dead-ended down near a creek and I hopped out and began to look for the mill. Well...an HOUR later, I finally found a sign along the creek which stated that the mill was located another mile or to upstream. It was only after I had arrived gasping for air that I noticed that there was a parking lot directly next to the mill. I could have DRIVEN to the mill and saved at least an hour of of searching.

On my way out of the McConnell Mill State Park, I finally found the sign for the turn off on the main road, which of course was completely buried behind a bush. In spite of the fact that I almost drove 5 hours out of my way for nothing, the sky lit up a bit as I arrived with the last bit of daylight, and I shot several frames before starting on the five hour drive back down to Virginia.

I didn't get much sleep over the next several days as I spent a great deal of time shooting with Mike Besant and Fred Wolfe, both of which are incredibly talented locals who took the time to show me around the the New River Gorge and Black Water Falls. I took a 6 AM flight out yesterday and then raced back to the campus to teach my afternoon class, so I'm a bit bleary eyed at the moment, but I hope to get many more shots up from my trip over the next few weeks.

By the way, this is my LEAST favorite time of year in California. Everything is is brown, hot, and ugly. I am SO jealous of my friends who live on the East Coast, especially during Autumn. I don't know if I would ever be able to move back there, but it sure is fun to think about.


William McIntosh Photography | 500px | Twitter

Tags:   McConnell Mill PA Autumn Nikkor 28-300 HDR

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After shooting with Mike Besant and Fred Wolfe on Saturday, October 12, I returned on my own the next day determined to find some sunshine. While the sun eventually came out, it clouded over again just as I began shooting the Blackwater Falls. I was very disappointed until it occurred to me that I might actually get a better shot without direct sunlight and was able to get the above shot with just a circular polarizing filter instead of one of my ND filters. I wasn't able to stay long as I knew sunset was approaching and I wanted to make it out to Lindy Point, so I took a few hurried brackets and then took off for the other side of the gorge. Although I shot brackets here, I ended up using a single frame in Nik Efex and ACR rather than HDR for this shot. Such a gorgeous park!


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Tags:   Blackwater Falls West Virginia Autumn

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When Mike and I first arrived, we shot the Grist Mill for quite a while from the rocks that you see in the foreground. We kept thinking that this didn't seem like the angle we had in mind and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally, we both headed off down the road on the opposite side of the parking lot, looked back, and smiled. The reflection was amazing and the Mill suddenly pulled to the center of the frame. Ironically, it didn't seem that too many photographers made the trip down the road from the mill. Roughly 70 to 80 percent of everyone who was visiting took their shots from the other side, or worse, wandered out into the middle of our shots before heading back to their cars. I think I took at least three people out this shot. Thank God for Adobe Content Aware!


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Tags:   Babcock State Park Autumn Grist Mill Reflection Fall Leaves HDR Nikkor 28-300 VR

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