I read that Dark Hollow Falls in Shenandoah National Park is the most popular waterfall in the park. If that's true, I can see why. It's a small but beautiful and intimate waterfall.

One leaf and a waterfall I visited Dark Hollow Falls a couple of weeks ago and shot the above image. Some of you who read my blogs regularly may recognize the image. It is the same composition as the following image, which I shot in October:

Autumn at Dark Hollow Falls For my visit to the waterfall a couple of weeks ago, I thought it might be nice to see how a summer photo would compare with an autumn photo of the same location and composition. The most striking difference is probably the color. The second most striking difference is probably the amount of water going over the waterfall. This summer, we were devastated by drought. I may have been lucky that there was any water at all going over the waterfall in August.

Another thing that struck me about the difference between the October and August images is that the tree branches that extend out in front of the upper portion of the waterfall are filled out with leaves, making it hard to see the upper portion of the waterfall from a vantage point downstream. The branches in the October image have no leaves, making it easier to see more of the waterfall. I do think the August image is lovely, but I think the October image is better overall.

While I was at Dark Hollow in August, I took the opportunity to play around with some different compositions. I rather like this one quite a bit:

Early summer morning at Dark Hollow Falls Here, leaving out the small pool of water and the leaves in the bottom left calls more attention to the mossy rocks. To me, this image has more balance than the first image, though perhaps a bit less visual uniqueness provided by the single leaf floating in the pool of water.