Lawson
Junction Falls South Lawson Waterfall Circuit Lawson, New South Wales
A long overdue shot from an awesome outing with great friends, into the Blue Mountains region earlier in the year. Unfortunately, lighting conditions were fairly harsh which made shooting at slower shuttle speeds very difficult. Making the best of the situation, I explored different compositions and tried to incorporate foreground elements into my images. I was intrigued by the surround sandstone walls that are completely covered by green mosses and ferns. It was a living, breathing green wall! Water trickle down the walls, bring out the vibrant colours of the plants. Using a circular polariser, to cut down the reflections, and soft graduated neutral density filter, I managed to achieve the silky effects of the water. However, this also resulted in slight motion blur of some of the leaves and vines in the foreground.
Furthermore, being so close to my foreground subject, I knew that I had to use focus stacking to achieve the required depth of view. Looking back, I should have photographed those frames featuring the foreground subject at a faster shutter speed and blend it into the waterfall background, which has a slower shutter speed. Waiting for some cloud cover might also be helpful to eliminate the slight overexposure at the top of the waterfall.
Regardless of flaws evident in the image. I hope that you will enjoy viewing the image, as much as me photographing it!
3 exp shot using focus stacking, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. B+W circular polarizer filter and LEE's Graduated Neutral Density filter (soft) Comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated!
Adele Falls South Lawson Waterfall Circuit Lawson, New South Wales
This image was taken during my foray into the Blue Mountains regions two weekends ago. Sydney was experiencing a lot of rain and I thought the waterfalls must be flowing at full capacity. As you can see, I was fairly wrong. Furthermore, the overcast sky that was forecast, turned out to be more of a mostly sunny weather. It was a relief for my fellow hikers, but it was not ideal for photographing waterfalls. In this image, I couldn't use an extra long exposure as there are water continuously dripping off the cliff face and onto my camera. This meant that I had to wipe the lens between every exposure! Plus having learnt the hard way the 5d Mark II's weatherproofing is hopeless. I sure did not want to risk my camera getting water damaged again!
For some reasons, I often find it difficult to get a good composition when photographing in a forest. It could be due to the clutter of foliage that makes getting a clean composition difficult. Images often turn out messy and the subject is often lost in all the different shades of green. Furthermore, lighting is a lot more uneven in the forest. For this image, I was really intrigued by the ferns lining this cliff face and wanted to featured them in the foreground. While using them to lead the viewer's eyes to the trickling Adele falls. I am still having mixed emotion about the composition this image. Feel free to leave your feedback/ comments below. Enjoy!
1 exp shot, Lee 0.9 GND (Hard) filter, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Thanks to all Phoide contributors to Lawson!
Most notably J. Chea.