Gone Golf'in or Gone Photograph'in

Russ Glasson

Dewatered Niagara Falls

One of my photo projects was to digitize all of my old 35mm slides as the years were taking their toll on them. Colors were starting to fade. Humidity was creating spots, moisture was making some of them stick together. I eventually completed that project and then subsequently found out from my brother-in-law that he had boxes of 35mm slides in his basement that had been taken by his father. Hence, I started digitizing my father-in-laws slides. Among some of those found was a set of fifteen on Niagara Falls without water. After digitizing them I posted them to the Internet via my Flickr account. That was in the year 2009. Since then these photos have had well over 20,000 hits.

In 1969 the Niagara Falls were dewatered. A dam was built to prevent water from flowing over the America Falls by diverting it to Horseshoe Falls. My in-laws went there to see what they looked like without water and naturally took a few photographs, i.e.; 35mm slides.

As mentioned above I posted them to Flickr.com and got many, many hits. Then in mid-December I got an e-mail from a James Nye who wanted to use some of the photos in a newspaper article by the Daily Mail, a newspaper in Great Britain. I granted them permission. and the article was soon published. Mr Nye e-mailed a copy which I found at

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338793/Niagara-Falls-ran-dry-Photos-moment-iconic-waterfall-came-standstilll.html

A day later I got a phone call from MSNBC who wanted to use some of the photos on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC (a cable TV channel) at 9:00 p.m. Permission was granted and I got more fame.

The following day I received another phone call; this one from Dan Kain, a very popular reporter for WFSB-TC, Channel 3 in Hartford, Connecticut. He wanted to interview me for a piece on the photos to appear that evening on their 6:p.m. newscast. Permission granted.

While doing the interview Mr, Kain mentioned that my photos were now on the Internet from pages of

www.yahoo.com and www.MSNBC.com so more publicity for me and the photos.

I then did an Internet search and found the following among other sites:

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/empty-niagara-falls_n_798331.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbglasson/4085873424/in/photostream/lightbox/

The day after the Kain interview aired on WFSB-TV I received yet another phone call from CBS-TV in New York City. They asked if I would provide them copies of the photos so they could air a selection on the nationwide newscast at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday evening. That same day I got still another call, this one from CNN. They asked me if I would be willing to do an interview with them in their Hartford, Connecticut satellite office. Of course I accepted.

What amazes me is the press is making much a do about nothing. What I'm sorry about is that my father-in-law, who took the original photographs, is not around to accept the glory for it he who truly deserves it.
In retrospect I guess I never realized the historical significance of these photos. According to a Niagara Falls newspaper and Niagara Falls museum very few photos of the dewatered Falls remain and of those that do these are among the best

This first sequence of photos are from the originals.

Dewatered American Falls, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Mal at dry American Falls, Niagara Falls

Cliff at dry American Falls, Niagara Falls

Dam diverting Niagara River from Falls

Dry rapids above Niagara Falls

Dry American Falls, Niagara Falls

Horseshoe Falls, Niagara Falls still flowing

Above dry American Falls, Niagara Falls

Dry American Falls, Niagara Falls

The following is a set of shots taken off a TV version of my live CNN interview with reporter Kyra Phillips.

You can view this interview on the Internet at:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/12/20/exp.nr.dry.niagara.photos.glass.cnn?iref=storysearch

Interview with Dan Kain on WFSB-TV (Channel 3) in Hartford, Connecticut that aired on the 6:00 p.m. news show.

Since these photos were taken directly off an old TV set the quality is not particularly good.

Website Hits

My son did a "Russ Glasson" search on Google and it came back with over 250,000 hits. I followed up a couple of days later and the total was over 252,000 hits. Here are some images of some website hits. The hits were from around the world from England to Italy to Turkey to Malaysia to Japan to Australia to Fiji Island. I found my photos got much coverage from TV stations, newspapers, blogs, scientific sites and on and on.