Tag: waterfall

Waterfalls always impress

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

It doesn’t matter what the size and scale is, waterfalls always impress. It may the noise, the spray, the pull of the rushing water or the sheer scale of the waterfall, in the end waterfalls always impress. I realized looking through some photos that I have visited 4 different size waterfalls and in each case I loved the visit. Why? Is it the overall experience, the beauty, the context and the feeling of power?

Big or Small, Which do you prefer?

Let’s start small; I have posted a blog post on the smallest and closest waterfall earlier, you can see it here where I was discussing shutter speeds. It still has a lot of charm and makes this small park a lovely place to visit.

The same stream continues to a smaller fall maybe 50m downstream

It is clearly not the size of the river or the height of the fall that makes these waterfalls always impress.

Yorkshire, UK: The Dales

I visited Yorkshire and in the Dales came across 2 falls of significance. They are a big step up from those discussed above. The West Burton Falls. The Cauldron Falls, on Walden Beck, pictured here, were painted by Turner and are just a short walk from the village. Nearby there are the Cray Gill falls but I didn’t get to see them. Maybe next time.

Instead I drove a short distance to the Aysgarth falls. These are on the River Ure (W3W location) and have also been painted by Turner. They consist of three stepped waterfalls and are easily accessed by a footpath. They have featured in the cinema blockbuster movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Mortain, France

Mortain-Bocage is situated in Normandy, in the Manche department of France. There are 2 waterfalls in Mortain. I talked about my weekend in Normandy in this blog post. The larger falls are 25m tall and are impressive and the tallest in Northern France.

Quebec, Canada

Parc de la Chute‑Montmorency, the Montmorency Falls in Quebec are in a totally different league. They are located on the Montmorency river just before it joins the St Lawrence river. In the past there was a power station here. The most impressive aspect of these falls is tehri height. The falls are 83m, over 270 feet, and that is a significant 30m more that the famous Niagara Falls.

There are several things to see here besides the thundering falls, the suspension bridge, the panoramic staircase (which was closed when I went in April) and the Via Ferrata (opens in a new tab) which is only for adrenalin mad people. The panoramic photo I have here was taken from the cable car station at the lower car park. I don’t feel I missed much by not taking the car, it soon becomes expensive when you are not travelling alone and that cost is outweighed by the fact that the car park fee covers both car parks. The lower one by the station and the upper one by the Manoir Montmorency.

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A spring afternoon walk around Villennes

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute

A cool spring afternoon was the ideal opportunity to take a walk in the park. Walk around the park and capture the quiet atmosphere at the start of lockdown. New year’s growth is just appearing. As a result; it is not swamped by the profuse summer leaves and flowers.

The small Paris suburb of Villennes-sur-Seine, in Yvelines, France has some wonderful architecture and parks. So I stayed in the centre of town and visit the Parc du Docteur Fauvel, the town hall and its garden and the river Seine. The river runs very close to town here. This spring afternoon walk around Villennes was in April.

These were taken on my Canon camera with either my 50mm or 18-135mm lens. I would recommend a Spring afternoon walk around Villennes as it shows you don’t have to be far from the city of Paris to be in lovely countryside. It’s a short train ride from St Lazare station. When you get off the train I suggest you start by appreciating the architecture of the old station building. However, If you come by car, parking in the town centre is limited and short stay. The town is not far from the A13 and A14 autoroutes.

My next walk will be a little upstream on the river Seine at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine

Follow this link if you want to see more of my photographs of Flowers and Plants

Some of my photos are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store, via the link in the menu or directly below.


The effect of shutter speeds

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

The effect of shutter speeds on the final picture is very important. The shutter speed , or exposure time, determines how long light falls on to the image sensor or film. It is measured in fractions of seconds for most photographs. The image sensor, or film, is very sensitive to light. Typically you see the time expressed as 1/125 sec. 1 slot of 125 equal slots of one second. As you extend the duration, the number will get smaller, A duration of 5 slots of 125 could be expressed as 5/125s, but you would see it as 1/25s. As with many features of a camera shutter speed is impacted by other settings. Most importantly the ISO. ISO is a definition of the sensitivity of the film or sensor. The higher the number the more sensitive the sensor is.

The brightness of a picture still depend on the light captured and this depends on 2 factors the speed and ISO. They are balanced like a seesaw. If you increase one you can reduce the other.

Of course the aperture, the size of the hole letting light in also has an impact.

These 2 photographs show the same waterfall at 1/10 second and 1/1000 sec. showing the blurred movement of the water or droplets frozen in time.

Let’s get back to the effect of shutter speeds. They are most useful when considering movement. This movement can come from the subject being photographed. In my examples above – the water. But is also can come from you as you move ever so slightly when pressing the button or wobble on a precarious cliff edge, (please don’t!).

The movement gives the image blur as the light from specific point of water, bird, car etc moves and is captured in more than one position. So the slower the shutter speed the more blur. If we want to capture something moving we can have 2 objectives to either:

  1. Capture the subject of the photo as if it was still, so that the light from the subject always falls on the same part of the sensor. This can be done by moving the camera in parallel with the object, Which is not easy. Or it can be done by having a short shutter speed so the light enters the camera before the object has had a chance to move. However the background will appear blurred as we are moving.
  2. Capture the subject to show the movement, by intentionally allowing some blur. To do this we have a longer exposure time, slower shutter speed. So the light moves across the sensor creating blur in the subject; often against a background that hasn’t moved.

Some of my photos are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store or directly below.


Other landscape photographs can be found here. You can see more waterfalls here and a post about long exposure tips.