Palisades Nosedive with Larry Tiefenbrunn

Photos and words by Larry Tiefenbrunn

We got off early from work a few weeks ago one day, so Mina and I decided to drive up about an hour away to the Palisades in Northern New Jersey. It was windy, cold and threatening thunderstorms so I didn’t know what to expect photographically.

Along the Palisades highway there are several look out points north of the George Washington Bridge. This particular scene caught my eye because of the plunging lines in the rock and in the trees and they go up in the textured water. My Platypod Max, mounted on the rock fence at the lookout gave me excellent stability even in the Highwinds so that I could get a tack sharp image.

There was hardly any significant color in the scene due to the overcast and slightly drizzly conditions. However, from the nearly black rock to the fierce looking clouds I could see almost every shade of the grayscale, which is why I decided to process this in black-and-white. I see seven layers in this image from the dry brush in the front to the white clouds behind. This one is going up in my office as a “wall-hanger”, my term for the one or two best shots of my year.