Pic of the Week 11/26/21

“Honey Creek”

Location: Turner Falls Davis, OK

Date taken: 11/7/21

Honey CreekTranquil waters of Honey Creek cascade over travertine rocks and sandstone boulders.

© Ben Jacobi

Happy Thanksgiving! Between slamming down pieces of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie I remembered I needed to share a Pic of the Week. And for those of you who are out and about during black Friday hopefully this post will give you some peace in all that chaos. But to properly tell the story of this image we need to go back to earlier this month when Ashlee and I were in the Arbuckle Mountains of southern Oklahoma. The day before we spent with members of the Red River Photography Club, and we visited the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur. Our day started with a sunrise shoot from our camp at Mountain Lake.

After sunrise, we tore down camp and made our way back to Turner Falls, but this time we would actually hike. We were going to hike in some of the backcountry of Turner Falls and search for some fall foliage. When we reached the trailhead, the sun was already climbing in the sky. Battling the light while seeking out fall color didn’t really appeal to me, so I went on the hike with very little expectations. To save on weight I just packed my 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses. We strapped on our hiking bags and began walking on the trail. Almost immediately we started going downhill and quickly reached a dry creek bed. I was surprised to see very little fall color change, but with lack of freezing temperatures most of the fall color was still a few weeks away.

Our hike took us along an old firebreak road and past a small juniper forest. We took a short break before continuing the trail. The trail took us to the Honey Creek day use area. We could hear the faint trickle of the creek as we followed the water downstream. Now we were at the last leg of our hike with less than a mile to go, but we would spend almost twice as long on this stretch of the hike. We were often distracted by multiple cascades and small waterfalls in the creek. In fact, I even went as far as to pull my camera out several times during this segment *gasps*! But of all the images I captured, this was the only one that stood out enough for me to process.

We had come upon a large travertine rock in the middle of the creek where several cascades were rushing through gaps and over some of the stones. I found a simple, but effective composition with mostly decent light and fired off a few frames. I like the strong curvy line of the water in the foreground, it creates a nice leading line into the travertine rock that leads the eye through the back of the photo and into the backlit forest. The light is also “spotlighting” some of the more interesting elements in the scene. This ended up being the best combination of light, water, and composition. We spent the next hour admiring the sounds and sights of the creek as we finished up our hike and returned to the parking lot.