Photography Resources Newsletter

Friday 23rd January 2009

Feature Week Waterfalls

This week we turn our attention to waterfalls, large and small, here and around the world.

Waterfalls affect people and animals nearby in a positive way, similar to the after affects of a heavy rainstorm the air is charged with positive ions. This was first documented in a scientific paper in 1892, although you also get these in fresh air in the country, and near larger fountains. These negative ions have a positive impact on health, mood, and energy, affecting serotonin levels in the brain. Negative ions also bond with impurities in the air, adhering to suspended particles and removing them, producing the clean air we find in mountain ranges and the countryside away from pollution.

Aysgarth Force

Image taken with Nikon D2X, with 24-85mm @ 66mm , ISO 600, 1/180th, F6.7 EV -0.3

Find out more ..... Waterfalls - their effect on us.

Waterfalls, also known as Falls and Force, here and around the world are visited and photographed by many. This week we are looking at all aspects of waterfall photography, and also identifying many of the waterfalls that you can photograph.

While many may photograph them in the summer, you can get different, often more impressive photos in the winter months, with greater water flow and less trees in the way. A single waterfall can be photographed at different times of the year, producing powerful photographs in the winter, spring and summer, as well as often autumn colours around the falls later in the year. Some falls are seasonal, and these need to be photographed after heavy rain or at some times of the year.

We have produced a number of lists of waterfalls :-

Major Waterfalls Around the World

In the Ghana portal we have also added a list of waterfalls in Ghana within the Locations > landscape section.

Articles include:-

Photographing waterfalls Takes a look at the technical side of waterfall photography, how a waterfall can be photographed in different ways to produce different effects.... This is split across 3 pages.

Waterfalls defined Looks at how waterfalls are compared or defined and why we come across many all claiming to be the largest in a country.

Waterfalls - their effect on us. Looking at the positive effects on being near a waterfall in more detail.

Stairway to heaven

Image taken with Nikon D2X, with 80-400mm @ 260mm , ISO 640, 1/180th, F17 EV -0.3

Within the UK we don't have a Niagara Falls or any falls that are as large as many found elsewhere, but we do have a number of large falls and many photogenic ones. Very large falls may be nearly impossible to photograph, and only able to be fully seen from the air, similarly some areas so high that you have to be so far back that detail is lost, so while the occasional visit to Niagara or something similar is a great experience we have many waterfalls here that provide the photographer with great opportunities, and challenges at no major expense. Within the lists you will see links giving more details and often photographs as well. Looking at Ordnance Survey maps you may also be able to see waterfalls marked in your own area, theses are likely to occur where the stream or river is running over a number of contour lines close together.

Would you like to photograph Niagara Falls? If so you may be interested to hear that Camera Images has a VIP Plus 1 to1 course being planned to run there. They are also putting together a project involving two houses, a 4 bedroom detached house and 2 bedroom detached bungalow, being done up and being able to be used by photographers within walking distance of the falls, so ask them if you would either like to join in this project to do up and make available these properties or would like to find out more on the Niagara VIP+ course.

In addition to the natural waterfalls there are a number of manmade ones, either brought about as a bi-product of a dam, or road, but also follies and architectural features. The Stairway to Heaven, flight of locks on the Grand Union canal has a waterfall over the bottom lock gates in the flight. We have another feature week planed for later in the year on canals.

We have also this week added location guides covering the following waterfalls in the UK:-

Becky Falls, Dartmoor, Devon

High Force, Middleton In Teesedale, Durham

Canonteign Falls, Canonteign, Devon

Rutter Force , Appleby, Cumbria

Swallow Falls, Betws-Y-Coed, Caernarfonshire

Conwy Falls, Betws-Y-Coed, Caernarfonshire

Pistyll Rhaeadr, Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Powys

Aberdulais, Neath, Glamorgan

Eas a' Chual Aluinn, Assynt, Sutherland

Falls of Glomach, Dorusduain, Ross-shire

Changes this week to this website

You may notice two more button on the bar on the left, Gallery and Sections.

The Gallery section, you may remember, we introduced in the Ghana portal and this week we have added this facility into this website. This allows us to include a larger number of images, which can be viewed one after the other or you can access a view with larger than normal thumbnails and these give direct links into the images. At the end of the photographs is a photographers comment/note page allowing additional thoughts to be shared in some cases. Galleries will be linked directly from some location guides, but you will also be able to see them from the Gallery button, and this also provides a highlight selection of galleries. Gallery entries in pages and index are shown with the symbol .

The Sections button, is another index, and gives you a direct link to featured sections within this site and portals, like the Ghana Portal, that although a free standing subweb will return you to this main website. Many weeks where we have a featured edition, like this week with the Waterfalls section, we have a complete sub-system for this, and up to now entry to these sections were only indexed from entries within it, or by going to the 'how to link to us' section. As these sections can be directly linked to or entered, we have now added a faster way to get directly to these specialist parts. As a part of this we have also added a Garden section that did not previously exist and reorganised the gardens contents slightly. A few other section pages have also been tidied up a little.

Tides and shipping page within the Reference Section - the information and links connected with predicting tides have been extended and links to information that allows you to find the current position of ships throughout the world, including cruise ships has also been added.

Summary of Articles Included this Week

Photographing waterfalls

Waterfalls defined

Waterfalls - their effect on us.