It wasn’t even a planned stop on our day trip. But, McGowan Falls and an empty parking lot were too much to pass up. The waterfall / dam is located on the Saugeen River in the town of Durham, Ontario.

From a photographic standpoint, these were the facts:

• High water volume
• A dam across the top of the waterfall
• Midday visit with not a cloud in the sky
• Kids in tow making slow, long exposure photography near impossible
• The primary purpose of the stop was to capture video
• Was not a planned stop

So, how did all these factors play out, as far as shooting photos? Well, see the gallery and I’ll tell you below the video…

McGowan Falls Image Gallery

To see the photos in the image gallery at full size, simply click on the individual pictures.

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High resolution versions of these images and other photos from the same day are available at Dreamstime. Want to earn cash from your own photos? Why not sign up for free with Dreamstime and start submitting now: Become a paid photographer!

McGowan Falls In Durham, Ontario [Video]

The following video was completely filmed with a Tamron 18-200mm zoom lens (as were the photos in the gallery above). This is an inexpensive, versatile lens with a wide range.

Please be sure to give the video a ‘Thumb’s Up’! And, if you haven’t already, we love it if you’d consider subscribing to our YouTube Channel…

How I Went About My Visit To McGowan Falls

First off, I’d like to say that this was my first visit to McGowan Falls. It was certainly not my first visit to Durham. For a while, back in the early 1990’s, I came to town once a week as part of my delivery route for the food distributor I worked for.

I can’t remember the name of the pizzeria I delivered to in town. But, I do remember having to wait some days for the owner to take in enough customers in order to have enough cash to pay me.

I was mistakenly certain that McGowan Falls was what the dam close to Highway 6 in downtown was called. In fact, there are three dams in total on the Saugeen River in this small town.

Anyway, the day was planned to meander across from Flesherton to Kincardine. The main goal was to reach Lake Huron and take in the certain rough waters on what was a rather windy day. The sign for McGowan Falls beckoned and we were surprised to see an empty parking lot.

I’m assuming that the water was exceptionally high, comparing to photos I’ve seen of the waterfall / dam. With the bright sun of midday and all that white water, it made for a bit of a photographic challenge.

I wasn’t messing with filters and a tripod to try and slow things down. The kids were throwing rocks into the rushing water and the noise from the waterfall made it near impossible to hear what they were doing. I, therefore, had to rely on sight only to make sure my kids were being taken downstream…

I decided to crank up the shutter speed as high as it would go. That, on my camera, is 1/4000th of a second. With the bright light, the photos weren’t underexposed. The lightning fast shutter speed made for some exceptional photos, freezing the water in place.

I find freeze frame water movement so interesting. When you look at a waterfall, or any flowing water, you tend to think everything is running in a straight line. When you freeze the movement in time, it is nothing short of loosely organized chaos. And, it’s beautiful.

So, instead of milky smooth long exposure shots, I came away with something the total opposite. I like both styles equally the same. Obviously, both portray the water in completely different ways. I really like somewhere in the middle, about 1/2 to 1 second where it seems to get the best of both worlds.

The Real Reason For The Visit

Getting right down to the nitty gritty, Durham was strategically planned on the journey west to Kincardine in order to capture video for our Touring Small Town Ontario video series at our YouTube Channel.

It’s no big thing. It’s just our typical driving tour POV videos but on a smaller, close to home scale. With the COVID-19 travel restrictions, we simply weren’t able to travel to bigger cities that we hadn’t yet featured. So, we decided to go close and small.

I didn’t know how they’d do. I was pleasantly surprised that these short videos of ‘don’t blink or you’ll miss it’ towns actually got views. As of yet, it’s not the traffic we get from larger cities like Windsor, Hamilton, Sudbury or London in Canada or Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse or Worcester in the U.S. But, it’s decent and enough to keep the channel alive.

The best part is, you can capture several towns in just a short drive. Compare that to the three day marathon trek from last August to capture a bunch of cities in the U.S. Northeast.

Click here for the Touring Small Town Ontario video of Durham, Ontario.