McConnell's Mill

This was by far, my favorite trip of the semester. Minus getting up at 5 am again. The weather was nice, with just a little bit of snow. It was great break from the cold weather that we had in Trough Creek. As our class and I walked down a trail to reach a waterfall, all I kept thinking was “this better be worth it.” I say this because, I feel like the past few trips, I have been taking the same photos over again and again. Once we reached the end of the trail i see this huge, gorgeous waterfall that I literally fell in love with. The only problem was that I had to work through the water to get the photos. Luckily for me, I had water proof boots that allowed me to walk in front of the waterfall. When I reached the center, I was literally starring at this huge, beautiful waterfall in the face. I was there for most of the time of our trip.After having this beautiful high of waterfall photos, I took pictures of every little thing I could think of on the way back to the shuttle. I couldn’t wait to go back and look at the photos later.

Before we went back to Point Park, our teacher took us to another part of McConnell’s Mill where there were more streams and other parts of nature. With this I was determined to get a few long exposure photos. That was my biggest concentration on the second part of the trip. I came to an area where there were little streams that had great potential to become bigger and stronger over time. Luckily for me, I got what I wanted. I have attempted long exposures multiple times on the trips, but was never really happy with my results until today.

I have definitely grown so much as a photographer on this trip and I really pushed myself to try new things. I think that I found a better understanding of what I would like to use as my final portfolio and I am very excited for the future trips!

This tree was right above where I was standing for the waterfall photos. This is going to sound very weird, but since there were no other trees close to where it was located, it looked like it was starring down at me, asking for me to take its photo.

For my portfolio, I am going to try and concentrate on closeups of nature. I think this is a good photo to use for it.

 The famous waterfall!

The closeup of the water shows a sense of danger and how harsh water can be when there is so much at one time.

Here is another possible portfolio photo.

There is one of my favorite long exposure photos. I haven't taken very many long exposures that I feel need to be shown to the world, but I am very happy with this one.