Palouse Falls Painting

Palouse Falls in eastern Washington State is a spectacular waterfall that plummets 200 feet into a natural amphitheater. The first time I went there in 2017, I wanted to try some night photos of the falls using light painting. That afternoon I scouted a location by the rim and checked with several other photographers who were also camping in the park that night to make sure that I would not interfere with any photography they might be planning. That night I returned and took a series of photographs with the goal of highlighting the waterfall and making the adjacent walls of the amphitheater recede into the darkness. For each photograph I separated the scene into different zones, and painted each zone with a spot light, counting the time I painted each zone. For each exposure, I experimented with the length of time I painted each zone until I achieved the lighting effect I wanted.