Nicole, Amber and Porcelain a Franklin Falls Attempt

For New Years Eve we decided it would be a good idea to start the day early, and head up into the mountains to shoot before we did dinner and drinks with friends.  Nicole, Amber, Porcelain, Henry Vance and I loaded up and head out to what we thought would be a fun easy hike down to Franklin Falls near Snoquamie, but when we arrived we were met with an impossible traffic jam.

Nat Geo had published that Franklin Falls when completely frozen is one of the most beautiful places in the North West during winter, and Seattle had responded by turning out in droves.  Back east we drive in ice and snow a lot.  The people of Seattle don't seem to have the same experience.  I saw a line of 30 cars stopped on an icy road, and knew that we were one person going a little too fast slamming on the breaks from 31 fender benders.  I decided to drive to a safer spot, park and that we would just walk into the woods and find a cool spot.

Hiking in fresh unpacked snow is a bit of a nightmare without snow shoes, but I used the same trick I use to get Franco (our pug) to go to the bathroom when its terrible outside.  I took tons of tiny steps to make a path so that we could all get down to the river bed and shoot.

After we finally got to a safe spot, we popped our champagne, and all ran off to take photos.  The intense cold meant that that time shooting didn't last very long, but with the amazing overcast light, and awesome team shooting was very easy, and in no time we all had some awesome photos to take home and work on.

I shot all of my images with my sigma 50mm F1.4 as it let me play around the most with the DOF and the trees!

I hope 2017 is off to an awesome start for all of you.  Make sure you check out Henry's Patreon  for his images from this trip.

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