Looks peaceful, doesn't it. Oh, the magic of photography....... and photoshop, there is most definitely some photoshopping going on here. That's what it took to make this look like a magical scene of tranquility. This is Silver Falls State Park in Oregon, which markets itself as "Oregon's Best Kept Secret". Now, I'll be the first to admit that I can be somewhat liberal with the facts surrounding my photographic endeavors but calling this place a "secret" is just ridiculous. Firstly, if you have a secret that you want to remain a secret, maybe, just maybe you might consider not posting it on the internet. Honestly, it's probably my fault for thinking that I might have stumbled on to "Oregons Hidden Gem", as another article put it, after doing a Google search for Oregon waterfalls. In hindsight it should have occurred to me that I'm probably not the first person to have this inspired idea, thus my anticipation at having the place all to myself was, shall we say misguided. On this fateful day I was in a bit of a hurry to get to the park as I didn't know the area and I wanted to make sure I had enough time to find a decent location.... as a result, I wasn't exactly filled with Zen when I arrived. The parking lot was empty though, as expected, so I quickly grabbed my gear and set off down the trail. After about 10 minutes walking, I get this nagging feeling that I'm going the wrong way.

However, I am a man, and as such, I will not admit (even to myself) that I am lost or mistaken when it comes to directions.... so I keep going. After another ten minutes of walking, bereft of waterfalls, I decide that the trail must be incorrectly marked and decide to turn around. I get back to the parking lot to find that in my absence someone had conveniently put up a sign pointing to the waterfall.... I will swear until my dying day that this sign was not there when I arrived the first time although it would appear they must have used some fast drying cement to erect it. However, the sign is not the only thing to have shown up since my misguided departure. Now there is also a huge tour bus parked in the lot and even worse..... it's empty. Panic rises in me like the time I got to school and remembered I'd left a certain kind of magazine on my bed and my mum was home doing laundry. Now, just as I did then, I start to run, pounding down the trail towards the waterfall.... but now, just as then, I am too late. So, as I'm writing this, I've become aware that you may be in two minds as to which story you'd like to hear more about... the waterfall, or the magazine. I've also become aware that you might want to hear about neither, but you're kind of committed after coming this far.

Well, after a barrage of questions about where I got it, why I would want it, a surprising request for recommendations and an embarrassing lecture about the ethics of such pictures, the tourists finally made space for me to set up my camera behind the waterfall…. the resulting image is what you see here. You might be wondering where all the tourists are in the picture but you're more likely still wondering what happened with the magazine….

Well, after a barrage of questions about where I got it, why I would want it, a surprising request for recommendations and an embarrassing lecture about the ethics of such pictures, my dad confiscated the magazine stating there is no place in the house for such filth. I was feeling quite sheepish and wanting to hide, but the timing worked out ok because I didn't see my dad for a while…. it just so happened that he suddenly had a lot of things to do in his shed. Must have been some cool stuff he was doing in there because whenever I did see him, he looked pretty happy. My mum though… not so much.

Oh Sh_t!