Four Days in Januaryat Yates Mill Pond Park

Day 1

Jan. 5, 2026

I didn’t start out intending to do a photo outing — much less a photo series of any sorts — when I started my 2-mile walk at Yates Mill Pond Park on Jan. 5. But it turned out that way. And the idea to develop a series evolved from images I captured in three subsequent visits in less than a week’s time.

Until Jan. 5, only one of my 14 previous visits to this park occurred in winter. Three others were in November and one was in early December. And in none of those visits, did I delve deep into the park’s woods to walk the trail. 

I’m sure the idea to take photos on my first visit this month didn’t occur to me because the forest, where the walking trail is located, was void of green vegetation, so subconsciously I must have thought that there’d be nothing substantial to shoot.

By now, you’ve probably surmised that after my visit on Jan. 5, I realized I was quite wrong. So wrong, in fact, that I returned to the park’s woods and took more pictures with my iPhone on Jan. 9 and 12 and made another visit on Jan. 11 with a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera.

After the Jan. 11 visit, I figured I had photographed just about everything I was going to need or want of the woods in winter. And again I was wrong. So confident that I was finished taking pictures was I that when I embarked on my walk on Jan. 12, I had told myself I’d not have to pull out the iPhone even once over the course. But alas, I was wrong about that, too.

My friends, a forest in winter provides photographers landscape picture opportunities galore! Green vegetation — i.e., leaves and wild grass, mainly — by itself does not make or break landscape photography. I’ll share the pictures I made in a four-part series here, each post devoted to one of the four trips I made there this month. So far (wink).

And I begin with the first visit, on Jan. 5. Photos from this visit and the ones on the 9th and 12th were taken with my iPhone Pro 13, including the lead-off photo in this post. I made this at a point on the loop portion of the trail that abuts agricultural property owned and used by North Carolina State University. 

What caught my eye here is not just the expansive field, but the unusual coloring in the sky. I can’t say the iPhone captured it perfectly, but the sky does show a few layers of different colors, and that’s what I recall seeing. 

To view a full gallery of photos from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

Above: A gaggle of geese swimming near the shore of the small portion of the pond, the part on the north side of the pedestrian bridge, which you'll see in one of the last photos of this post. I photographed the geese above early on — as I first crossed the bridge at the start of my walk. I note that, because I also encountered them at the end of the post, at which time I took a few more pictures. And I’ll add that if you intend to stick with me for the whole series, it’d be helpful to make a mental note of the geese because I refer to them in the Jan. 11 visit as well.

A dense — and, for winter in this forest, rare — cluster of green vegetation (above), and a shot depicting the closeness of trees to the path of the trail (below). The path is covered with double boards like this in about six spots along the course because of low-lying areas of ground that stay wet or damp for a long period after a decent rain. 

A rare tree with leaves still clinging to branches (above), and two examples (below) of non-green vegetation in the forest. 

The path narrows at points because of tree roots of all sizes. Above is an example of thick and multiple roots popping up above ground with very little space for an individual to land feet on flat ground. Below are smaller but longer above-ground roots. The roots on the path, combined with its undulating course throughout, including brief root-laden portions that go uphill and downhill quickly, are a challenge to those who make the journey. But many people like that about the course. A walker or runner simply has to watch the ground studiously for the duration to avoid being surprised by an unseen root. 

Another tree with golden leaves (above) and a pedestrian bridge over a narrow stream (below). 

Above and first two photos below: Closeups of some of those golden and brown leaves. 

Above and first two photos below: Closeups of the sparse green vegetation in the woods in winter. 

More trees snug along the path (above) and, off the beaten path, a fallen trunk and its large, exposed roots (below). 

A closeup (above) of an odd-colored, textured tree trunk. Below, an expansive patch of dead grass hugging the shorelines of a creek. 

Above and first four photos below: A large number of geese from the gaggle had moved to the west shoreline of the pond’s smaller section (north end), a very short distance from the pedestrian bridge, by the time I returned to the bridge at the end of my walk. The vast majority of the pond is on the other side (south) of the bridge. The closeups of the geese show most of them grooming or fishing in the shallow water. I like the quivering water ripples in the last three photos. 

Above: A simple reflection shot, exploiting the textured water ripples. 

These few geese above (and closeup below) stuck to the east side of the north pond area. 

Above: I end this post with a shot of some pond homesteaders who camp out on driftwood in a shallow portion of the pond’s south (and larger) section. I see almost the same number of waterfowl at this very spot every time I do my walk here. It was partly because of these birds, and partly because of the geese, that when I returned on Jan. 11, I brought one of my Canon DSLR camera equipped with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens and a Canon EF 1.4 extender. You'll see my captures from that visit in Part III of the series. Notice the intriguing vertical reflection lines in the upper portion of the photo.

Imagine having a 40-foot-tall waterfall right in your backyard …

Lee Ann and I joined other members of her family at a large, isolated rental cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina for three nights between Christmas and New Year's. 

How isolated was it? Google Maps cannot pinpoint it. So, to get to the Havilah Falls cabin in southern Scott County, we used Google maps to get as far as a specific local road in Tuckasegee, N.C., then followed written instructions sent by the owner to complete the remaining 15-mile drive.

The instructions gave us a little challenge near the end point, but we eventually made it. I don't know how many acres around the cabin the owner owns, but aside from the cabin and a large waterfall (I'd estimate 40 to 50 feet) immediately behind the cabin, everything else in the vicinity is mountains. And they’re steep. Seriously. That's the waterfall in the photo leading off the post. 

A very short distance below where the picture ends is land on which there is a fire pit, and then a very short walkway from there to the cabin's rear deck. It's a wonderful experience to take in that waterfall (the water comes from Cold Creek) and the sound the water makes cascading down the rock formations. 

On the second day, a couple people in our group got brave enough to climb up a steep hill (no trail) on the left side of the waterfall (out of view in all the waterfall pictures) to reach and walk along the middle ledge. And on the third day, one of those intrepid souls found a sculpted bust (pictured below) wedged behind one of the boulders you see on the left at ground level. 

For many years, I’ve used high-dynamic range (HDR) processing software for the vast majority of my landscape shots partly because so many landscapes present contrast in lighting. But I also have used it because I’ve found a way to use it tastefully and get striking images without going over the top with outlandish color, an unchecked characteristic in some HDR work that many photographers find offensive. 

But in my photos from this trip, I found myself making 95 percent of my JPGs from single frames because the heavy presence of shade was forcing me to use high ISO settings, and that was introducing noise I didn’t care for in my images.

Click on any photo to view a larger and sharper version. To view a full gallery of images from the Havilah Falls trip, follow the link in this sentence. 

  

The highway (above and below) off which a gravel road (first four photos below as well as the sixth photo below) gave us access to the cabin. I took so many photos of this gravel road because of the tree shadows that were intersecting it.

A slice of the tree population in this neck of the woods (above) and the access to the gravel road from the highway (below). 

Above: An HDR (high-dynamic range) rendering of the gravel road from the cabin. I use HDR here because the cars in the foreground were in almost total darkness from shade.

Below the falls, the rock formations angle downward (above and below), before water returns to a traditional creek formation. 

 

Another shot of the falls (above) and a close-up slice of rock formations below the falls (below). 

The fire pit in operation (above) on Sunday, with the falls in the background. 

Above and below: Lining the walkway to the fire pit and waterfall are a collection of small boulders in interesting shapes, designs and colors. 

Above and first two photos below: These three photos represent an effort to capture the falls at the same time of the day using different shutter speeds, using my Canon 6D. Above, the shutter was set at 1/125. Below, it's 1/60. And in the second photo below, it's 1/20. The lens I was using, my Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3, is equipped with vibration compensation, so other than the falling water, everything should be pretty sharp.  

 

In the early afternoon (1:28 p.m.) of Dec. 27, with the sun shining, I noticed interesting shadows on the waterfall when I took the above photo with my 6D. About two and a half hours later, at 3:53 p.m., I returned with my iPhone Pro 13 and took the photo below.