When I retired six years ago, I knew that one of the things I wanted to do was to spend more time on photography. At the time, I had never been to a professionally led photo workshop, so as an experiment, I thought I would give it a try. The one that I picked out was for three days in Hocking Hills State Park, near Logan, Ohio, in early April. The cost was modest; I had been there before and knew I already liked the area.

Hocking Hills features several stone cliffs, small canyons, caves, and waterfalls in a mixed-temperate forest. Over a couple of days, we went around to the various locations and generally had a good time with nice results. One afternoon though, we had to wait out some rain in one of the caves.

On the last morning, the workshop leader thought we might have good luck returning to Old Man's Cave hoping to find nice sun rays. When we got there, we found that he was exactly right. Looking over the area, I thought that I could get a nice scene from a spot that was only accessible by crossing the stream that runs below the cave. Donning my boots, I splashed across and set up the shot you see here. I tried a few different exposure variations and liked this one the best at 2 s.