Exploring Bells Rapids

It’s early November and we are still lucky enough to have water running through the rivers in the hills of Perth, unheard of this time of year. I’m not complaining. In fact I’m doing to opposite and taking advantage of this unique event and took a trip out to Bells Rapids at the foot of the Perth hills.

After only a 40 minute drive and a short walk, I was at the bridge and could see the water running. As I wasn’t familiar with the location, I arrived early to give myself plenty of time to explore the place and discover possible compositions for landscape images. While the temperature was warm, there weren’t any clouds in the sky, so the light was harsh. I really wasn’t going to take any images until the sun had set, or had at least gone behind the hills.

The warm weather meant I was accompanied by plenty of flies. I explored both sides of the river and and eventually settled on three potential positions. With the cloudless sky providing glare off the surface of the water, I needed my polariser. My the time I started shooting, there no no need for any graduated filters. So I took the 17-35mm and set up for my first shot.

I played around with the settings, to ensure I have an exposure of 1 second or more. An exposure of this length of time mean the foam and flowing water would create patterns around the rocks, yet still provide some definition in the water.

After grabbing the first two images, it was a quick dash back over to the other side of the river to capture my final image in rapidly fading light. By the time I setup, my exposure was up to 8-10 seconds. This length exposure produced an image with softer water.

If you’d like to be notified when I upload my next landscape photography adventure, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.