My kind of weather, my kind of images, my kind of camera, and the way I like to remember the old times.  If only the weather and location cooperated, I would be most often making images like this; but it is hard to develop a project around images like these unless I travel frequently to the right locations during the right weather conditions.  Even then, the images would be few and far between.

PS.  I have only received two ideas for photo projects, and I assume the one from a Homewood resident was facetious.  The only valid idea came from a viewer of mine outside of the United States who is a consistent, and knowledgeable follower of my blog.  I assume that others have no ideas.  This is probably consistent with the slow death of photographer’s websites around the world.

Blackwater Falls has lots of rocks and roots and water.  They get a lot of rain throughout the year, when it isn’t snowing, and that keeps everything green and growing.  That is why it is my favorite State Park in West Virginia.

Sorry for you color lovers (you don’t need to comment), but I used these images to work on my monochrome processing.  There are times when I feel like only making monochrome images since I like them and I do not like the bright garish color flower images that some others prefer.

After the May snow and a thunderstorm, any land that was moderately level had lots of standing water at Blackwater Falls State Park or anywhere in the Canaan Valley.  It would be very difficult to hike across the area.  Even most of the trails were very muddy with sections of standing water.

The tower was originally built in 1922 by the State of West Virginia on Backbone Mountain at an elevation of 3736 feet.  It was the first fire tower in the state.  The tower in Tucker County is accessible by a narrow single lane road with lots of potholes.  After you get to the end of the road you can climb the 133 steps up to just underneath the cabin.  My brother climbed it but due to the visibility, etc. I didn’t go up since I didn’t expect to get any meaningful pictures.

I captured these images from the Pendleton Falls overlook on the road to the southside cabins in the Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia.  It was raining and the clouds were low in the morning after the thunderstorm.

I really liked how my Pentax K-3 III performed, even with only the 18-55mm kit lens.  I bought that lens to primarily use in the rain.  The lens was cheap and if I ended up sacrificing it, I wouldn’t be alarmed.

In early May, sections of the Canaan Valley in West Virginia and surrounding area received up to 20 inches of snow, but not all at once, which melted fast.  It was a record amount of snow for May in West Virginia.  Following that snowy week when I arrived, it had warmed up and the ground was saturated.  The first night I was there they had a thunderstorm and lots of rain.  The next day it was raining lightly, the trails were muddy with standing water, and the creeks and river levels were high while we were out and about.  I have never seen this much water flowing over the falls before.  The roar of the water was very loud.

Since it was still raining lightly while we were out and about viewing the overlooks and falls and I was carrying my Pentax K-3 III camera with the 18-55mm lens, it got baptized, but I had no problems with it in the light rain.  We had walked down to the lower level of the walkway at the falls and that is where I used my iPhone to make the video.  We were close, the lens wasn’t wide enough.