Customer Reviews

Waterfalls and Gorges of the Finger Lakes

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I live within a hour or two of all these beautiful spots and am ashamed to have only visited a couple. We will use these gorgeous photos as a guidebook for the Spring, Summer and Fall to make certain we don't miss a one.

Why did I think I have to travel far for scenery of this caliber.?

While this is a book of wonderful travel photos that reveals the treasures in Upstaters' own backyards, it's more than that.
Doeffinger also provides an 8-page introduction to the geology that created these beauties and the history of their discovery and preservation, plus 4 pages of detailed photographic information--he works at Kodak, for whom he writes photography books. And there's a detailed map section showing all the locations and information on 10 publicly-accessible sites. These include hiking difficulty and time, directions (many of these falls are within State Parks and none say just "at the back of the parking lot"), with special highlights to look for.
I don't think it was meant to be anything beyond what it is: a handsome compilation of the somewhat homey pleasures that Upstate affords to day-trippers, family outings, and homesick ex-pats. It may be too poetic to be the scientific treatise Mordant1 was expecting, and apparantly not up to his photographic standards either, but he does offer some equally deep insights on modern music in his review of the latest Brittney Spears opus.

Splendid. The best of its kind. An exquisite ode to the subtle beauty of this region. This is a photographic essay of extraordinary depth, which whispers the gentle magic of upstate NY. Read it for the sheer love of nature and life, even if you are unfamiliar with this corner of the world.

I have to confess: I love waterfalls, and as a consequence I love waterfall books. I own a lot of them (and I'm working on writing one myself right now!), so I've given a lot of thought to the genre. Some of these books are ugly but useful: they have plodding prose and poor photographs, but they tell you where the waterfalls are clearly and accurately. Some of these books are merely beautiful: great prose or great pictures, but little information. A few unfortunates are neither beautiful nor useful. But rarest of all are the books packed with both beauty and information.

Derek Doeffinger's "Waterfalls and Gorges of the Finger Lakes" is one of these rare gems. The photography is flawless: both grand vistas and intimate details are recorded with sensitivity and grace. The two-page spread of Taughannock Falls on pages 64-65 is the only photograph I've ever seen that begins to capture the sublime grandeur and beauty of that waterfall. And the prose is crisp and clear and endearing. The structure of the book at first left me puzzled: It didn't proceed from big to small falls, or from northern to southern falls, or from more developed to wilder falls. After a while I caught on: the photos are arranged by *season*: summer, then fall, then winter, then spring. There are no chapter headings to tell the reader "you're out of summer into fall now". The message is instead delivered subtly: the waterfall names are printed in green for summer, orange for autumn, cold blue for winter, and warming violet for spring. I admire Doeffinger for trusting his reader to pick up on subtle clues, implicitly if not explicitly.

The section on "ten gorges to visit" is packed with information. Not just driving and hiking directions, but information on the features that make each site particularly worth visiting: "easiest falls to visit", "you are allowed to stand under the falls", "plunge pool deep enough for swimming", "water drips from the cliffs onto the trail (and you)".

If you live in or visit the Finger Lakes region, you'll find this information useful and appealing. But even if you never do, you'll appreciate the beauty of the photos and the spirit of the prose in this book.

I've owned this book for a few years, and keep pulling it off the bookshelf to marvel at the gorgeous photos! I like that the photos are varied in composition and season. I live in Ithaca, which has many of the Finger Lakes' spectacular gorges and waterfalls. I recently published a book called "Ithaca - the City, Gorges, and Colleges" that you can see at [...]. It has more than 200 color photos of Ithaca, Cornell University, Ithaca College, the gorges and waterfalls, and Cayuga Lake, as well as text.

Great publication on a very hard and complex subject to photograph. The maps and given locations of the waterfalls shown in the book are a big plus compared to some other like publications I have seen and read. The waterfalls were captured on film and with the advent of digital I think could be enhanced even more to represent what was seen and photographed. Altogether a book I would have no problem recommending to fellow photographers interested in photographing these subjects as I have one my self and bought one for others.

Bob Walker

Excellent assortment of waterfall and gorge photos! Great photo composition and seasonal color were well planned into all of these shots. These photos are also great for painting or sewing landscape references which is why I purchased it, besides just loving waterfalls!

Locations of the pictured waterfalls are certainly a bonus, but the pictures themselves are enough reason to own this book - very enjoyable!