I love waterfalls. I enjoy photographing waterfalls of all shapes and sizes. Giant falls down to a tiny trickle. Enormous drops of 200+ feet or just a few inches. Spring, summer, and fall all pose great times for waterfall photography.

But what about winter?

Cold. Dreary. Frozen. Winter.

I like cold and snow in my waterfall photography. But it is a matter of scale. What draws me to waterfalls is the movement of the water. The fact that the waterfall is ever changing from moment to moment.

Photographing a waterfall that is starting to freeze up but is mostly still flowing is really fun. Snow around the periphery of the scenery adds character and a new element. But there is such a thing as too much,

And after this most recent big winter storm, combined with a prolonged period of much colder weather than we typically have here in the Finger Lakes Region of New York, I think Mother Nature has one too far.

A completely frozen chunk of ice and snow is impressive to see. It is cool and interesting. But it is not by definition what makes a waterfall. A waterfall must have water falling. I can hear it under the layers of ice and snow. It is down there taunting me. There can even be a trickle breaking through or visible through a whole. But that takes away from what makes a waterfall photograph special. Depicting the motion. Of the water in whatever way the photographer chooses. Now if it is all frozen solid as far as the image that we can see is concerned, it may not even be a waterfall.

Is a frozen waterfall even a waterfall anymore? Is it transformed into something else? Am I now just photographing a statice winter landscape. While photographing winter landscapes are fun it is not what I come for when I visit my favorite waterfalls.

Can it please just get to a little above freezing here so there will be more flowing water in the falls. I beseech you Mother Nature let the water flow once more.

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