Bridal Veil Falls

Author's Comments

The first time I saw Bridal Veil I had been driving the length of the box canyon at the wrong hour, midday in July, and the falls were a thin white ribbon against shadowed rock that I could not really photograph. I came back the next morning at six and understood my mistake. Telluride sits in a canyon that holds light strangely. The sun has to climb over the ridges before it reaches the floor, and there is a window in early morning when the falls themselves are still in shadow but the cliff face behind them has begun to catch warm light from above. That contrast is the photograph. Late May into June is when the falls run hardest, fed by snowmelt from the high country, and the mist at the base carries far enough that you will want to keep a cloth in your pocket. The hike from Pandora is moderate and worth doing slowly. The wide shot from the lower approach holds the full 365 feet and the small power plant perched at the lip, which gives the scale something to argue with. Without that little stone building at the top, the falls would read as merely tall. With it, they read as monumental. A long exposure here is almost mandatory in the lower light, and the mist will soften your frame whether you want it to or not. I have come to like that. The detail shots, lower down where the water hits rock and breaks apart, are the ones I keep going back through when I am home. The wide image is the one everyone makes. The closer abstractions are where the canyon shows you something more particular.

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