My job as a landscape photographer is a constant process of education and extrapolation. Whenever a light bulb goes on and I learn something new about the natural world, I instantly try to apply my new knowledge to enhance my art of photography. Through weather analysis, I’ve learned that it is typically about 5 degrees cooler at Tumalo Falls than it is at my home in downtown Bend, Oregon. I also know that in our dry high desert climate, warm snow sticks to trees better than cold snow, which tends to quickly blow off of limbs. As I have a pretty good grasp of local topography, I also know that Tumalo Falls is in a pretty deep canyon. While this winter has been pretty disappointing in terms of photogenic snow, I recently used several bits of knowledge to capture the following picture of Bend, Oregon’s Tumalo Falls in winter.
Bend Oregon’s Tumalo Falls after a fresh dusting of winter snow.
A temperature of 34 degrees in Bend and clouds to the west triggered my senses and prodded me to dust off my cross country skis. Three inches of fresh snow at the Tumalo Falls trailhead gradually built to 5 inches of snow at Tumalo Falls. Temperature at the falls was 29 degrees and the snow, as I’d hoped was sticky, coating the adjacent trees with wonderful wintery details. Because of Tumalo Falls’ canyon location, the air was placid and the trees behaved while I composed this image with my large format 4×5 camera. I even prefer the icicle details present in this landscape photograph over the solid sheet of ice I would have found under colder conditions. I’ve been to Bend’s Tumalo Fall under all sorts of winter conditions, including rain, graupel snow, white-outs, heavy snow and the light snow you see in what may be my favorite winter photograph of Bend, Oregon’s Tumalo Falls. I hope you enjoy my learning experience. To view more of my fine art photos of Oregon’s Lakes, Rivers and waterfalls, visit here, Oregon Waterfalls.
Thanks for Visiting,
Mike Putnam
