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This is Hardraw Force in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, at 100ft the highest single drop waterfall in England.
My wife Liz and I were spending a day exploring the Dales, tasting cheese and looking at various beauty spots highlighed in our tourist guide and our trusty OS map.
We reached Hardraw towards the end of a cold and damp day, and to be honest, the thought of another squelchy hike wasn't too appealing. But there was no way I was going to pass up the chance to see and photograph a decent waterfall, so on I went, fully laden with LowePro, camera and tripod, much to the amusement of the locals.
I was glad I made the effort as the path to the waterfall and the fall itself were like something out of middle earth. I was expecting elves and dwarves around every turn.
I'd already made several exposures of the falls in their entirety, and with the light fading fast towards the end of the day I started photgographing more intimate views, using the falls as a backdrop rather than the main element in the frame.
For this image I wanted to emphasise the details in the stream bed at my feet (or over them, as was the case here!) and the wonderful chocolate brown colour of the peat laden water.
So it was on with the polariser and into the stream, thankfully not very deep at this point.
The polarising filter did a great job of removing reflections from the water so that the rocks underneath showed up really well, the the two stops of light that the filter cost me bumped the exposure time up to a whopping 8 seconds.
This long exposure rendered the waterfall as an impressionistic blur, which contrasts very nicely with the sharp details of the rocks in the foreground.
Well worth getting my boots wet to get this image.
Filename - waterfall 34.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @24mm
Exposure - 8sec @ f16, ISO100
Location - Hardraw Force, Yorkshire Dales
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Tripod, cable release and mirror lock up used to prevent camera movement.
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