Return to Pauley
Always a pleasure to shoot in portrait orientation all day.
Pauley creek holds a special place in my heart. It’s the place I turned to after struggling with stepping up, hot on the heels of a two-swim day on Slab. I consider this run (at low water) a palette cleanser and a beautiful day out in nature; an absolute California Classic. So when a crew from out of town asked if I could lead, I jumped at the opportunity.
Pauley is a rare find. Where else can you find autoboof 12 foot drops and equally fun low volume slides? My friends know that I jokingly refer to it as class II (at low flows) but after this weekend I’m thinking it might actually be true (ok, maybe more like IV-).
In all seriousness, I joke that this run is class II not to stroke my own ego, but rather because it’s such a unique run - big drops, low consequences? Sign me up!
Our crew of 7 had a similar flow to last year (LOW, probably 200 cfs) but that’s about where the similarities end. Instead of following leaders down the run, I’d be leading a group of 6 other boaters from out of town. To increase the challenge, Pauley is also quite a tight creek, and there’s not much eddy room. Thankfully the crew was super dialed, communicated extremely well, and was patient with my memory (or lack thereof).
To be honest, I’m quite surprised at how well I remembered the drops. However just to be safe, I did warn the crew that there was a 5% chance we’d route into Federal blind…
In terms of photos, I tried some different tactics - namely increasing my f stop for more depth of field to compensate for lapses in AF (I would learn later that my AF subject recognition was set to cat). Since there was an abundance of light, I figured stopping down my aperture wasn’t a terrible idea - plus, the noise increase from a 1 stop ISO increase really isn’t that bad.
Since I started photographing kayaking, I’ve dreamed of making it in this canyon and shooting Federal Falls. So while everyone else was intently scouting the drop, I turned my eyes to the possible compositions.
Though sadly I never felt like I found an angle on Federal that I truly enjoyed. I had visions of anchoring off to trees river left and shooting wide angle skate style, but there just isn’t enough free area to get down to where I need. I’ll consider bringing a rope and harness to get the ultimate shot I’m looking for.
My shots at Slip and Slide were also not perfect, but decent enough. I don’t think these photos accurately portray the magnitude of the drop. Some of them make the paddler look like they’re just paddling a class II rapid. Again, I think I need to try a few different compositions here.
Overall, just a mega fun day out there. At risk of sounding like a broken record, I can really only focus my energy and attention on one thing at a time - paddling OR shooting photos. Lately I’ve been so caught up in driving my paddling progression forward that I’ve had a hard time slowing down for photos.
So today was just what I needed - an abundance of light, great subjects, and an awesome setting. I turned down Giant Gap at a decently juicy flow (which would have been great for my paddling) for Pauley, and I’m glad I did. Today was a much needed refresh and reset.
I guess today was another full circle moment, though instead of resetting after a bad day on the river, I was allowed a creative reset. And for that, I’m eternally grateful.
Beautiful! Great blending of Nature and Man. I can’t be on the water as much as I’d like but your editorials recharge me. Thank you. 👍