Springs at the 191, Clanton: Field Notes

Spring water is clear and cold. In this state that makes it the exception, not the rule.

These are field notes on a spring-fed site in central Alabama, and the first note is about the water, because it is unlike almost every other body of water in this state.

Alabama’s rivers, creeks and reservoirs are mostly turbid: they carry red clay sediment from the surrounding soil, which makes them brown, opaque and dark. A spring is different. Water emerging from limestone underground has been filtered through rock, which means it comes out clear, cold and at a constant temperature all year.

Three photographic consequences follow and they are all unusual in this region.

Clear water is transparent, which means the bed is visible through it — pale limestone, gravel, sand or waterweed — and the colour of the water is the colour of the bottom seen through a blue-green filter. That produces the pale turquoise or blue-green that spring-fed pools are known for, and it only reads when there is light on the water.

Clear water also reflects less and transmits more than turbid water, which means it behaves less like a mirror and more like a window. A frame across a spring pool shows what is in it rather than what is above it — which is a different subject entirely, and it means the standard reflection frames that work on a reservoir do not work here.

And the constant temperature produces mist. Spring water stays at roughly the same temperature all year, which means it is considerably warmer than the air on a cold morning and considerably cooler on a hot afternoon — and the first of those makes mist over a spring pool a reliable winter condition rather than an occasional one.

We have not photographed a wedding at the Springs at the 191; spring-fed sites in this region behave consistently. Which areas are included, what access there is to the water and where the limits are, the covered alternative, and what the ground is like underfoot are questions for their team.

Springs at the 191 at a glance

Where	A spring-fed site at Clanton, central Alabama
The water	Clear and cold — transparent rather than reflective, and turquoise in light
The consequence	You see into it rather than onto it; reflection frames do not work
The mist	Constant water temperature makes winter morning mist reliable
Ask first	Water access and limits, areas included, covered alternative, footing

The water: the problems, and the solutions

The problem with clear water is that it is easy to lose. Its colour depends on light penetrating it and scattering back out, which means it reads strongly when there is light on it and not at all when there is not — so a spring pool in deep shade is simply dark, and the turquoise everyone came for is absent.

The solution is position and hour rather than technique. A spring pool wants light on it, which means the frames belong at the hours when the sun reaches the water — and in a wooded Alabama hollow, where springs usually are, that may be a narrow window in the middle of the day rather than at the ends of it.

That reverses the usual advice and it is worth establishing on a walk. Standing at the pool and noting when the canopy lets the sun through is ten minutes that decides when the water frames happen.

Bright high overcast is the other good condition and it is frequently better than direct sun: plenty of light on the water without the specular glare that direct sun makes on ripples, which means the colour reads cleanly across the whole surface rather than in patches between highlights.

The exposure is the second problem and it runs the way it does with any bright water. Meter so the water holds its colour rather than clipping, which means a frame that looks slightly dark on the back of the camera — and then lift the faces with a close source gelled to match the ambient if they are in shade.

A stop over and the turquoise washes toward white, because the highlight clips before the colour can register. And the white balance has to leave it alone: set it for the faces, because the water’s blue-green is the subject rather than a cast. Correcting it out renders the whole frame warm and wrong.

The third problem is that clear water does not give the reflection frames a photographer expects from a body of water. A reservoir or a lake mirrors; a spring pool shows its bed. Which means the frames are looking into the water rather than at what is reflected in it — and the composition follows from that.

The solutions are three. Look down rather than across: a frame from above a pool, with the bed visible through the water and a couple at the margin, is what clear water gives and no turbid water can. Use the edge: the boundary between wet rock or gravel and clear water is a strong line, and in low light the wet surfaces are dark and saturated while the water is bright. And find the still eddies: even a spring run has slack water at its margins, and a small area of genuinely still clear water will mirror where the main flow will not.

The fourth note is the temperature, and it is a comfort matter rather than a photographic one. Spring water in Alabama emerges at around sixteen or seventeen degrees Celsius year-round, which is refreshing in August and painfully cold in February — and anyone stepping into it for a photograph should know that in advance.

That constancy is also what makes the mist. On a cold morning, water at a steady temperature under colder air produces surface mist reliably rather than occasionally — which in a wooded hollow with bare trunks around it is the single most atmospheric condition the site offers, and which is available through the whole winter rather than on a few autumn mornings.

And where a spring feeds a run or a creek, the moving water is loud. That is not a photographic property but it changes what a ceremony beside it needs: running water competes with unamplified vows, which makes amplification a more important question here than the setting suggests.

The hollow, the ground and the humid year

The setting around a spring is the second half of the site and it is usually a wooded hollow, because springs emerge in low ground.

That has a useful consequence: the damper ground and better soil favour hardwood over pine, which matters because hardwood is the shade in this state and pine is not. Oak, hickory, beech, sweetgum and sycamore along a spring run have broad flat leaves and considerably denser crowns than the loblolly pine that covers most of central Alabama.

The canopy edge is the reliable position: a metre or two inside at the margin of an opening gives soft directional light in front and a dark canopy behind, three or four stops of free separation and no equipment. Hardwood still filters and therefore dapples, but the patches are fewer and softer-edged than a pine’s.

Magnolia and cedar, where they occur, are the real blockers — and a mature magnolia’s dense glossy evergreen crown gives genuinely full shade in every month, with the caution that glossy leaves throw hard specular highlights in direct sun.

The hollow’s enclosure is the other consequence and it cuts both ways. It means the site is sheltered, cool and green, which in an Alabama summer is a genuine comfort advantage over open ground — and it means the site loses the sun early and gains it late, so the direct-sun window is shorter than the sky above suggests.

That is worth reading on the ground rather than from a table: standing at the site and estimating where the sun will meet the treeline gives the real end of the outdoor day, which in a wooded hollow is frequently an hour or more earlier than the published sunset.

The interval that follows is the site’s signature condition: the hollow in soft even shade while the treetops above are still lit, which puts a subject in flattering light with a brilliantly lit canopy behind them for twenty or thirty minutes. That is made by exposing for the lit canopy and lifting the faces with a close warm-gelled source.

The metering trap is severe at a spring site: dark hardwood canopy and wet dark rock make a meter overexpose a face by a couple of stops, and bright clear water fools it hard the other way within a single frame. Manual, metered on skin, and check the water.

The ground is the practical note and it is worth raising in advance. A spring site is wet by definition: seeps, soft margins, wet rock and standing water are all likely, which means the usable positions are on paths and firm ground rather than anywhere near the water, and a party in formal shoes moves carefully. Wet rock beside water is also slick, which makes the venue’s limits a safety matter rather than a suggestion.

The humidity is the condition running under everything and at a spring in a hollow it is at its highest. It softens contrast, which helps the water’s range; it reduces clarity at distance, which hardly matters in an enclosed site; and it warms and diffuses the light at the ends of the day.

It also means biting insects are a genuine consideration in a damp hollow through the summer, which is worth mentioning to a couple rather than discovering.

And the practical Alabama notes apply. Summer heat and humidity make an outdoor ceremony between June and September a welfare matter first, though a spring hollow is noticeably cooler than open ground. Afternoon thunderstorms are near-daily in July and August, and heavy rain raises a spring run quickly. Spring is the state’s severe-weather peak, which makes a named covered alternative a requirement.

• Spring water needs light on it; in a wooded hollow that may be midday
• Meter so the water holds its colour; a stop over and the turquoise goes white
• Set white balance for the faces — the blue-green is the subject
• Look into the water rather than across it; clear water shows its bed
• Read the treeline rather than a sunset table; the hollow goes dark early

The central Alabama year

Central Alabama has a humid subtropical climate with mild winters and a long hot summer, and at a spring site the water’s constancy makes the seasonal contrast unusually sharp.

Winter is the best season for the site’s most distinctive condition. Spring water stays at roughly the same temperature all year, which means on a cold morning it is considerably warmer than the air — and that produces surface mist reliably through the whole winter rather than occasionally.

Mist over clear water in a wooded hollow, with bare hardwood trunks around it and low raking light coming through them, is the single most atmospheric frame this site produces. It is available on most cold mornings between December and February and it is worth the early start.

The December sun at this latitude reaches about thirty-five degrees above the horizon, which is low enough that the whole short day rakes rather than floods — and with the hardwood canopy down, that light reaches the water and the hollow floor in a way it cannot in July. Winter is the season when a wooded spring site gets the most light rather than the least.

Hard freezes occur here, and a spring is the one water in the state that does not freeze — which means a steaming clear pool surrounded by frost and frozen ground is a genuinely unusual condition worth being ready for.

Snow is occasional and rarely lies, and where it does, snow against dark wet rock and clear water gives the widest brightness range the site offers.

Late winter into spring brings the flowering: redbud and dogwood through March and April in the hollow, azaleas in planted ground, and wisteria on anything it can reach. Against dark wet rock and clear water that saturated colour reads at full strength.

The honest spring caveat is severe weather. Alabama sits in one of the most tornado-prone regions in the country with a pronounced peak from March through May, and severe thunderstorms are a real feature. A named covered alternative with real capacity is a requirement — and at a spring site the additional consideration is that heavy rain can turn a clear run cloudy and raise it quickly.

That last point matters more here than at most water sites: the clarity that makes a spring worth photographing is temporarily lost after heavy rain, when surface runoff carries clay into the run. A clear spring after a dry week and the same spring after a storm are different subjects.

Spring proper is the most comfortable season: warm, green, long-lit, the canopy leafing out through April and the water at its clearest.

Summer is hot and humid and the spring hollow is the site’s answer to it — noticeably cooler than open ground, shaded, and with cold water in it. It is the one season when a spring is genuinely a destination rather than a subject, and the midday light reaching the water is at its strongest, which means the turquoise reads best in July.

Afternoon thunderstorms are near-daily and they are also the thing that clouds the water. Biting insects in a damp hollow are a real consideration.

Autumn is the best season overall. The heat breaks in October, the humidity drops, the air clears, and the hardwood colour arrives late — typically from the last week of October into mid-November in central Alabama, weeks later than New England.

In a hardwood hollow that colour is concentrated rather than scattered, because the damper ground supports exactly the species that colour best: oak russet, hickory gold, sweetgum’s mixed red and purple and beech bronze. Against clear water and wet dark rock that reads at full saturation.

Late October and early November are the easiest and most beautiful dates here, with the caveat that November is the state’s second severe-weather peak.

More frames from Springs at the 191

Springs at the 191 wedding photography: common questions

Why is spring water clear when Alabama's rivers are brown?

It has been filtered through limestone underground rather than carrying clay off the surface, which is why it emerges clear, cold and at a constant temperature.

What does clear water do differently?

It transmits rather than reflects, so you see into it rather than onto it. The standard reflection frames do not work; looking down into the pool does.

How do I keep the turquoise?

Meter so the water holds its colour rather than clipping, and set the white balance for the faces. A stop over and the colour washes to white.

When does the water look best?

When there is light on it — which in a wooded hollow may mean the middle of the day rather than the ends of it. Bright high overcast is the ideal.

Why is the winter mist so reliable?

The water stays at roughly the same temperature all year, so on any cold morning it is considerably warmer than the air above it.

Does rain affect the water?

Yes. Heavy rain carries clay into the run and temporarily clouds it, so a clear spring after a dry week is a different subject from one after a storm.

More Alabama venue guides

We are writing a photographer’s guide to every venue we would happily shoot in Alabama. Here are three more, plus the full index:

• Stone Ridge Venue, Heflin: The Problem, and Four Ways Out
• Venue at High Falls, Guntersville: One Frame, and How It Is Made
• Venue at The Depot, Rainsville: The One Decision That Governs Everything

All Alabama →

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