chaos vs falls
Well done Chaos, it was a great walk and excellent effort to make it all the way to the bottom (and back up).
This is the second time I have been to these falls, the other was back in 2014,
https://plus.google.com/+GerardBlacklock/posts/KfyujBwQcfB
its such a great spot and I would love to go back again, needs a bit more water than what was there on this particular day with the girls.
No bad for handheld either 🙂
So, mum wanted to go for a bush walk for mothers day, after presenting the idea to Chaos she promptly choose a the Blue Mountains and more specifically a spot near Blackheath called Mermaid's Glen which we had been to previously. I did say to her, 'thats a long way (in kid terms anyway) to got' to which she responded (quote) ' yeah, but it's worth it'. On that note the trek was decided, with one minor variation, Leura Cascades might be a easier option with Tickles in tow.
Everything did conspire against us, rain, hazard reduction burning and lots of smoke, but we made it and not to be deterred by alittle rain we donned the raincoats and barrelled on down the steps along side the Leura Cascades, its a great spot and such a nice walk even with the kids, both kids made it all the way to the bottom of Bridal Veil falls and even to Weeping falls, where we stopped or some lunch before making the trek back out. Its a fair walk with quite a bit of elevation to be covered, there was some whinging.. 'pick me up' …'pick me up' but all in all, they did very well. Tickles walked about 75% of the way and Chaos about 95%.
Here's a shot from the stairs near the cascades of our little trekker (tickles)
View large
This is from a spot which I refer to as the fair-weather photographers spot 😉 if your looking for a quiet accessible waterfall then this is your location, a short walk down some steps and there is a nice sheltered spot to setup your tripod and take in the beauty of this small final waterfall in the Leura Cascades.
I have taken photos of this waterfall a total of 3 times now and each time I have come away with differing images do the conditions but also due changes in the way I view a scene and compose it. To be honest I don't think I have necessarily improved on previous attempts, moreso just generated different images 🙂
The falls are quite small and required quite a wide angle lens, in this case, rather than run with a single image I decided to try and encapsulate the scene pretty well in its entirety, well as much as my pano format would allow! As always a scene like this, even on a rainy overcast day has quite some dynamic range in the light, as such i bracketed each shot in this panorama, this meant I had alot more control of those shadowy areas 🙂 There was quite a few portrait orientation shots (about 8) taken for this and then it was cropped fairly heavily from the top and bottom.
Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 20, 6 & 30 seconds
ISO 160
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)
As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed
Flow to me
Sometimes to achieve that composition there is only one way to do it – wet feet and bum out over the edge of the next waterfall, whilst confident that a missplaced step would send me over the edge i had some comfort in the fact it was only a few feet down 😉 not like the falls below that 🙂
Anyway, itsa great little spot Leura Cascades and whilst you can go for the fair-weather positions there is plenty of scope to reach out and pull a composition of the cascades that has some originality to it 🙂
Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 10 seconds
ISO 160 (don't ask me why 🙂 ) this was one of the first shots so the old brain was a bit fuzzy 😉
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)
As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed