About Me

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Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, United Kingdom
Bit of a long tooth IT Manager - been and had a few hobbies, as for the title, I make glass beads, its Called Lampwork, I brew my own Beer, its called fun and I take photos, thats the oldest hobby, since I was 16 or so. My first camera was a Zenith E - then a Pentax KR to go digital after a long stint with a Pentax Super A. Now a Nikon D5200 and a D7100 with a Sigma 150 f2.8 macro lens to play with amongst others. Please note all photos used are my own and I retain full copyright to all of them. Thank you for respecting digital ownership

Sunday 4 October 2015

if you go down to the waterfalls today ......


Had a good walk with a couple of like-minded friends from the photo club, 4 Waterfalls walk at Ystradfellte. All the usual suspects Dippers, Woodpeckers and assorted woodland birds. Getting to the falls I spotted a Kingfisher on the other side of the river, for once it landed on a branch in view, normally all I get is a flash of blue as it goes past at max miles an hr. So, it landed and was in view, my 70-300mm lens is in Cornwall, I am in Wales - enjoy the view and move on !

The day proved interesting with a fair turn out of the public and what seem to be a never ending stream of groups of river ‘nutters’ not exactly sure what it is called really but they find areas of the river with waterfalls and then, best I can describe, drop dive the plunge pools from the top of the fall.

They are led by what is obviously an experienced guide and are fully kitted to do it, as safely as it can be, but, it plays merry heck with trying to get photos! 

No sooner do you get Jo public out the frame and look to take the shot than all these helmeted nutters turn up in the frame, its then a case of waiting while they drop off the edge and haul out of the plunge pool. It has to be said they all seemed to enjoy themselves and seemed to have lots of fun. On a nice day why not !

Anyway, a few shots, not too many as when you have seen one waterfall shot, well they can get a bit repetitive cant they. Truth to tell we saw the first couple of falls but decided to not bother with the last one, all the photos here are the White Meadows falls, you get two / three for the price of one there.

Starting at the top fall, moving down and then a 'riverlet 'waterfall.

The top fall as you see it when you finally clamber to the top area, and it is a clamber !




The top line on the left is where the nutters appear then clamber down and go behind the fall, the instructor took a group shot - so I thought it worth capturing that moment 




This then cascades down a lower level before the narrow plunge over to the lower river cascades




After that it forms a normal river again and gets to a place where it takes a sharp left over the next  falls and immediately after the drop it takes a sharp right and flows on down the valley




The river was pretty low, this is the lower falls from under the overhanging rock - the rock platform I am standing on to take this is normally part of the falls 




Looking back upstream you can see the gullies the river has carved along the rock fault lines at this time all of them have their own little version of the big falls 


I will finish with a bug ( its me after all ) and a flower

There were a few  Hovers, but only a few, this one I managed to get a reasonable shot of - Melanostoma, probably scalare but difficult to be certain.




And finally a flower, Herb Robert, it was growing in moss on a boulder under the low Hazel grove in dappled shade, this one had a shaft of low sunlight on it - ignore camera settings and play, camera says 1/60th at f3 @100 iso. final take 1/1000th at f4.5 @100 iso - thats now looking like I 'saw' it.




In all a nice day topped off by a fab view of a Red Kite floating above the car park when we got back, cant ask for more.

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