Waterfall secrets
Go beyond long exposures using a host of skills to take your waterfall photos up a gear with James Paterson
Waterfalls are one of the most enticing of landscape subjects. From a photographer’s perspective there’s so much potential. First and foremost there’s the movement of the cascading water, which we can transform into silky-smooth blur with a long exposure. Then there are surrounding details like rocks, rivers and foliage, which can all add wonderful foreground interest. As such, any selfrespecting photographer would reach for an ND filter, set up a long exposure and capture the motion in the water as beautiful blur. While this is usually the best course of action, there are other less obvious tricks and skills we can use in combination with our long exposures to elevate our waterfall photos.
Some of these tricks are purely camera skills, while others require a combination of camera and post-production techniques. One such technique is shutter blending. Waterfall scenes tend to have a mixture of fast-moving water in the falls and slower-moving water in the river below. As such, the right shutter speed for one area may not be ideal for another. With shutter blending, we can combine the most attractive blur from different frames using Photoshop. We’ll also explore simple exposure blending techniques and focus-stacking tricks, and explain how to get rid of troublesome tourists.
You won’t necessarily need to apply all of the skills to every waterfall photo, but it helps to be able to call upon them when the situation calls for it…