Waterfalls of the Blue Mountains

[emydura]

While I now live in Canberra, I'm actually from the Blue Mountains (just west of Sydney).As much as I love Canberra the Blue Mountains is where my heart belongs and I try and get home as much as I can. It would have to be one of the worlds most beautiful places and was declared a World Heriatge Area in 2000. It is popular with bushwalkers, abseilers, canyoners, nature lovers, landscape photographers etc. A definate must see if visiting Australia. It is most famous for its amazing sandstone gorges and incredible vistas. The first two photos are examples of these.

But today I'm mainly going to show you some photos of the many lovely waterfalls you can see in the region. This is especially for Jeanlux who I know loves the sight of flowing water in a photo (as I do ). Most of these photos are taken from a walk from the region called "Valley of the Waters" (Wentworth Falls region). There are many beautiful cascading waterfalls on this walk and it is well worth the effort.

David


Grose Valley (from Mount Hay)







Empress Falls
















Sylvia Falls

 

[emydura]

Wentworth Falls




Terrace Falls

 

[Dido]

Nice pictures many thanks for this.

 

[lindafrog]

What fantastic scenery thanks, I feel warmer just looking at them .It is nice to see what the beautiful green earth looks like. We've had nothing but gray sky and snow for the last six weeks here in Northern lower Michigan.

 

[cnycharles]

wow! i've been editing/uploading dry area images all afternoon, nice to see some green/moist landscapes. it would be nice to curl my toes in some wet, green moss (in a warm place) right about now; very nice pictures, thanks!

...I was looking for some flowering phrag besseas there, but didn't see any

 

[hchan]

Thank you so much for these David, great pics! That's how I want my photos to turn out, but they never quite do... I think I need to invest in a tripod.

Being a Sydney-sider I love the Blue Mountains too, but I'm rather boring with my choice of walks. I usually doing something around Leura, Katoomba and up around the Ruined Castle. There are some waterfalls around Leura, but I'll have to check out Valley of the Waters!

 

[Shiva]

Looks like paradise.

 

[Yoyo_Jo]

Fabulous photos!! I saw the Blue Mountains in 1998 on a lame tourist bus trip, but we didn't get to see any of those falls.

 

[emydura]

Thank you so much for these David, great pics! That's how I want my photos to turn out, but they never quite do... I think I need to invest in a tripod.

Being a Sydney-sider I love the Blue Mountains too, but I'm rather boring with my choice of walks. I usually doing something around Leura, Katoomba and up around the Ruined Castle. There are some waterfalls around Leura, but I'll have to check out Valley of the Waters!

Thanks Hubert

The Valley of the Waters walk starts at the Conservation Hut, Wentworth Falls. It is a popular tourist walk and it is as long or short a walk as you want it to be. You can do a 5 or 6 hour walk and do a loop around Wentworth Falls. If you just want to shoot Empress Falls and a few others, you can be up and back in an hour or so. Steep climb back up.

For what it is worth, here are a few waterfall photographing tips -

* Use a tripod - long shutter speeds mean you can't hand hold a camera

* use a polariser filter - removes reflections from leaves and water. Saturates colours. Essential.

* best to shoot waterfalls after recent rain to get the best effects.

* Shoot only when the waterfall is in shade not in sunlight. This means either photographing early or late in the day or photographing on cloudy days. Most of the photos here were taken at around 6 to 7 AM.

* Shooting in shade means you will get will get slower shutter speeds which will give you the blurry water effect. Shooting at small apertures (eg f16 or higher) will reduce the shutter speed as well as give you greater depth of field. The polariser filter will also slow the shutter speed by 2 stops.

* If you can't get the shutter speed slow enough you can use a ND filter which reduces light to the camera. I sorta think if you need this you are shooting at the wrong time of day. But I guess there are times when you have no alternative.

* You don't want to overdo the slow shutter speed though. I think the shutter speed of the 2nd photo of the 2nd post was too slow. The water is just a bit too blurry. The water was roaring over those falls and hence a quicker shutter speed would have been better.

* I generally think waterfall photos look best where the top of the waterfall is at the top of the photo. The waterfall draws you into the photo. Also look for something in the foreground to draw you into the photo. For example the log in the third waterfall photo.

* Photos of waterfalls tend to work better from the base looking up than above looking down. I find it often best not to have the sky in a waterfall photo. The bright light of the sky tends to blow out in contrast to the heavily shaded waterfall, providing too big a distraction. A dense canopy above the waterfall is ideal.

* Often closeups within waterfalls look better than trying to photograph the whole waterfall. I quite like this photo of a closeup of Gibraltar Falls in the ACT -



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[Erythrone]

Fantastic!

 

[Clark]

Great shots!

I counted 3 sapiens.

 

[NYEric]

I counted 3 sapiens.

Assuming!
thanx for sharing these great photos!

 

[Ernie]

NICE! Shoot, if I lived there, I'd just walk around for a couple weeks too.

 

[SlipperFan]

Absolutely beautiful photos, David! Great job with shutter speeds. You should publish these somewhere (besides Slippertalk).

 

[paphioboy]

Beautiful... I'm glad the flood did not affect you...

 

[wojtek]

Great photos !!!

 

[hchan]

Looks like paradise.

Haha we're pretty lucky, with our Sydney Harbour, Blue Moutains to the west, wineries to the north and the endless beaches we can't complain :rollhappy:

 

[Hera]

I so look forward to your photos. Its like we have our own private National Geographic photographer in the house. Thanks.

 

[W. Beetus]

Those pictures are spectacular! Beautiful scenery!

 

[emydura]

What fantastic scenery thanks, I feel warmer just looking at them .It is nice to see what the beautiful green earth looks like. We've had nothing but gray sky and snow for the last six weeks here in Northern lower Michigan.

We've had a fair amount of grey sky here too lately. It does snow in the Blue Mountains occassionally (altitude of 1000m) although it doesn't last long.

Fabulous photos!! I saw the Blue Mountains in 1998 on a lame tourist bus trip, but we didn't get to see any of those falls.

I assume you went around the various lookouts which is a full day in itself. To see all the jewels in the Blue Mountains requires a fair amount of time and physical exercise.

Great shots!

I counted 3 sapiens.

Three is correct. All photographers.

NICE! Shoot, if I lived there, I'd just walk around for a couple weeks too.

It is a great place for bushwalking. You can do short walks of an hour or so (such as where these waterfalls are) or extended walks of a week or more. I've walked nearly all of it. A beautiful walk is the Blue Gum Forest walk in the Grose Valley (3 or 4 days) which is in the heart of the valley of that first photo. You can walk through the whole valley. The Blue Gums are the most magnificant gigantic eucalypt trees. To think they wanted to develop all that area. Some rich bushwalkers got there money together and bought the land and gave it back to the people as a National Park. We are forever grateful for there generosity. I remember walking through there once and came across a wild herd of cattle, leftovers from a previous era. Hopefully they have been removed now.

Absolutely beautiful photos, David! Great job with shutter speeds. You should publish these somewhere (besides Slippertalk).

Thanks Dot. Maybe when I get enough together. Sometimes I post in a photography forum, but I haven't posted these yet. You are the first to see them.

David