I love a cascade

I really do.

There are few things I enjoy more than sitting in one of my favourite spots watching the infant River Tawe as it makes its way down the foothills of the Brecon Beacons before flowing into the Swansea Valley and out to the sea.

I love listening to the crystal-clear water as it rushes over rocks, burbling its merry way ever further downhill.  I love watching dippers (my favourite birds) as they dart and dive before heading back to their riverbank nests.

This week's image is of a small cascade just upstream from my bird-watching spot.  It's of a small cascade (or pair of cascades to be more accurate) and was quite a technical image to make.

As I wanted a close foreground object to anchor the scene, I had to take two images focused at the fore and background respectively and then blend them in Photoshop to achieve an image that is pin-sharp from front to back.

Additionally, I needed to polarise the image to reduce glare of the water and increase my exposure time as well as using a filter usually reserved for darkening bright skies to balance the contrast between the bright cascades and the darker water.

Looking at and enjoying it is so much easier!

Fujifilm GFX50R, Fujinon 23mm f4
6.5 seconds at f16, ISO 100
tripod, self-timed release
Haida circular polarising filter, Formatt Hitech 3-stop reverse graduated filter
2 images focus stacked

I two things about this picture.  Firstly, it's the rocks in the foreground; they look huge but in reality they were quite small.  And secondly I love how cool this image is; it really conveys the transition from Autumn to Winter for me, and I think it was well worth all the technical shenanigans I employed that day!

You can watch a video about the making of this image here: