SHOOTING STEPS

1 SET UP THE SHOT Once you’ve found a suitable location, mount your camera on a tripod and attach a remote release so you can trip the shutter without touching the camera – which could cause vibrations and make the image less sharp. Turn off image stabilisation for the same reason, and compose the scene.

2 CHOOSE YOUR FILTERS If stopping your lens down to f11 or f16 and setting a low ISO (100) doesn’t give a shutter speed that’s slow enough, use a neutral density (ND) filter. A 1.2ND was used here to increase the exposure by four stops. An ND grad is necessary if you’re including sky.

3 CHECK CAMERA SETTINGS Before shooting, check everything’s set up correctly. You can see here that an exposure of 1sec at f22 and ISO 100 has been set with the camera in manual exposure mode. Exposure mode is down to personal preference – aperture priority or shutter priority could also be used.

4 CLEAN THE LENS Before taking a shot, check the lens or filter for any water droplets. If you’re shooting close to a waterfall or river, splashes or spray may get on the lens. Wipe any water droplets away with a clean microfibre cloth, otherwise image quality will suffer. In drizzly weather, use an umbrella to protect the camera.

5 TAKE THE SHOT Take your first shot and see how it turns out. In this scene, the spout of water hitting a rock and cascading in all directions was the main point of interest and made an interesting image in its own right. A shutter speed of 1sec recorded just enough blur.

6 EXPLORE THE SCENE First impressions aren’t always the best, so experiment with different angles and compositions. In this case, a wider view captured a much better sense of the drama of the location, with the cascading water acting as foreground interest and leading the eye up the ravine and towards the distant mountains.