When I first visited Hamilton Pool, on a Saturday afternoon in June 2004, the park was essentially deserted. I had no trouble getting in and no problems with people cluttering up my photos. Skip forward 13 years to last Saturday, though, and the story is quite different! When Mike Criswell and I tried to visit this time, we found a 1 hour wait. Rather than sit around, we switched to plan B and decided to come back on Monday when things were bound to be quieter. On Monday, however, despite it being a work day, during the school year, and with the pool closed to swimmers, we still had to wait for someone to leave before we could get in. Thankfully, the line was only 15 minutes long though so we did manage a visit.
Although my original image has been successful by any measure (it’s my most stolen image ever!), I was always disappointed at the quality of the raw files so it was good to have a chance to retake it. This time, somewhat more work was needed to get rid of all the people (I took the shot multiple times then used Photoshop to paint people out using bits from each picture) but I’m happy with the result and it should look better when printed large. All I need to do now is get back there again on a day with a few clouds.
For the technically inclined...
Fantastic image, Dave! Like you said, last time I was out there – a few years ago – there were only a couple of other people there. Shame how it’s gotten so popular, but I suppose it’s for the best.
What I mean is, shame that there are lines to get in now, but I guess they need to control it.
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Damn Dave, can you give me a chance to catch up at work and process some photos! I am competing with the Masters trying to process (Favorite time of the Year, I want to go there and shoot on a practice day), this is a great shot and what a great place, cheers! I got a blog post keeping my eye on you tomorrow!