Rhiwargor Falls - by Adam Cusack

Oh no, an early start on a Sunday morning in the freezing cold! Surely there will be snow in April when it’s a bit warmer, we could go then! But no, my conscience reminds me I’ve arranged to pick up Claire and Dan and it would not be fair to leave them waiting in the car park looking out for the silver car, when in fact I’ll be going in the wife’s 'clean' black car! It’s dark as I tip- toe around the house looking for long lost flasks, bits of food and 'chocolate' – on Ron’s recommendation. Into the car I go, then back out to scrape the ice off and I’m ready.

I arrive at the Spar car park to find Claire already waiting; we sit in the car and wait for Dan. There is no need for excited conversation, I could tell from the frost on Claire’s hat that she too was probably thinking the same as me, the silence said it all – until Dan arrived who was full of beans. After an hour's drive, we got out of the warm car and headed to Ron’s house where we also met up with Rachel. Ron informed us of the route, expected shots and the sort of locations and setups we would come across. A quick coffee and Rhiwargor Falls, here we come.

We arrive at Lake Vyrnwy and meet up with another camera club member, Rhian who lives not that far away, lucky for her, she gets a nice lie in! Ron informs us we have a bit of a walk, looks at my ill prepared trousers and suggests I borrow his 'gaiters' I am so glad I did, these things are fantastic. They stop all kinds of water and muck from getting in and the best part, no kids with me to let me know just how 'un-cool' I look, although the others were probably thinking it! Anyhow, today is all about taking pictures of snow and water and looking around, this was a good place to do it.
Rhiwargor Falls is a beautiful place to visit. The mixture of earth brown mixed with the snow against a backdrop of grey cloud seemed like quite a challenge but looking through the camera the task seemed less daunting. Once at the top of the falls, we split up and looked for locations to shoot. I found a spot close to the water and a sheer drop. Set up my camera on its tripod and took a few shots.

On playback, the sky was over exposed, dropped the exposure level down a few stops and the foreground was too dark. Right, now to try my Christmas present, a ND Grad filter kit. That’s better, sky and foreground all exposed correctly, can’t wait to get home now and load onto my PC! After playing around with the filters, I found I could get the camera shutter even slower without having to resort to using aperture to control the amount of light getting into the camera. This came in very handy for fluffy water shots. A quick coffee break, bar of chocolate, a cream cracker and we move onto another location, this time - icicles. This is harder than you think because these little fellers were melting and as a result, drops of water fell which meant a new challenge, capture the falling water drop! Camera onto manual, shutter priority and start from around 1/500th and move up until required shot obtained.

Thank the stars for digital photography, how did they afford this 10yrs ago!
Well, it’s beginning to get dark and Ron calls it a day. We drive back to Ron’s for a hot coffee and discuss the day’s shoot.

I’ve learned a lot today, by putting what I thought I knew about my camera into practise and playing around with various settings and situations to get a half decent picture.
The use of a ND Grad filter, of which I’d only read about 2 months ago, and the wildly changing environment from bright sun to dark shadows proved a challenge and a great Sunday out with the club……bring on the next one - hopefully one where I can wear my new sunglasses, shorts and take plenty of suncream - the Bahamas perhaps?!

More photos of the clubs day out can be seen on the Gallery