Category Archives: Argentina

Iguazu Falls

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Iguazu Falls was the final destination of our journey south last month.  This is one of the great waterfalls on our planet, wider and taller than Niagara Falls and, because it is actually a combination of many separated falls, second in width only to Victoria Falls in Africa. Victoria has an uninterrupted curtain of water one mile wide.  But the one waterfall that would dwarf all others, if it still existed, is the virtually unknown Dry Falls in the state of Washington, USA. With a width of 3.5 miles and a height of 400 feet, it once carried ten times more water than currently flows through all the rivers of the world.  But that was more than 10,000 years ago.

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The Falls as seen from the Hotel’s Terrace (Argentina Side)

Iguazu Falls cannot be seen all at once unless you are riding in a helicopter.  In fact, you have to travel to another country to see a significant portion. The main feature, the Devil’s Throat, is in Argentina but some spectacular sections are in Brazil.  To appreciate the scale, one should experience both.  Access to most of the sections is not difficult, as long as you don’t mind walking a fair distance in very hot and humid conditions.  It didn’t help that the tour gave us very little time to explore the spectacle, let alone devote enough time to photograph it.

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About 15 minutes walk from the Hotel

I’ll refrain from describing all the logistical lessons we learned, but anyone who has questions can raise them as a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them.

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Partial View of Devil’s Throat

As the images suggest, the walkways take you very close to the edge of the falls.  The lack of any reference objects makes it difficult to gauge scale. The falls facing each other above are actually part of a continuous loop that goes around behind the camera.  I would guess it is at least a 200-foot drop in the view here.  To give you a sense, the image is a photomerge of 4 separate images taken with my wide angle zoom at 26mm.

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Grey Crowned Crane

OK, the above image is not a waterfall.  But on our way over to the Brazilian side of the falls the tour company included a stop at a bird “sanctuary.”  It was actually OK if you didn’t desperately want to see (and photograph) Iguazu Falls.

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Iguazu Falls, Brazilian Side

After the tour of the bird sanctuary and the lengthy processing through Brazilian customs, we finally arrived at Brazil’s national park for Iguazu Falls.  This was quasi-familiar territory since I had discovered Google has a “Street View” of this park during my pre-trip research. (Click Here to see it)  So I knew where to ask that the bus drop me off to maximize the time I had available.  The image above shows the view from the top level of the multi-level viewing structure.  There is an elevator from this point that takes you down

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Iguazu Falls, Brazil

to here, the lower viewing platform.  The dress code here is somewhat different from Antarctica. From the photographer’s right, there is a ramp that takes you to other viewing locations but I decided to concentrate on this spot.

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Iguazu Falls, Brazil

The above image is a 2-image photomerge taken from about the same spot as the 4 young women in the previous image.  Again, this is a wide angle image (24mm). For the majority of these images I was using a high shutter speed (1/5,000th sec. above).  But since I had a tripod and a variable neutral density filter, a time exposure seemed like it might also be interesting.

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Iguazu Falls, Time Exposure

I would have liked to stay and continue taking pictures but the bus back to Argentina was about to leave so it was time to go.

Journey South-Part 2 (Antarctica)

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As we boarded the ship that would take us to the White Continent, I recalled our months of planning and preparation, the helpful advice from others who had preceded us, the sage equipment and technical guidance from experienced photographers/bloggers, and the detailed packing lists from the travel company.  (See for example, my guest post on Leanne Cole’s Blog on December 5, 2014.)   But now, looking at the grey skies over the Beagle Channel, we knew that good images depended almost entirely on the region’s infamously volatile weather.

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The Route South to Wilhelmina Bay

It takes two days on a cruise ship to cover the distance from Ushuaia to the Antarctic Zone, a voyage that often features very rough seas.  But perhaps our luck was changing. The Drake Passage which had brought grief to so many, seemed not to care about us.  Nevertheless, after nearly 48 hours of remarkably smooth sailing, we reached the passage between the South Shetland Islands and found unpromising conditions.  A heavy fog obscured the channel and the islands were almost invisible.  Not good, I thought, as my camera remained poised but inactive.   The ship’s captain decided to bypass Deception Island, one of the advertised highlight spots for a Zodiac landing. As we traveled south, however, the fog began to lift and about three hours later the scene began to transform (see image below).

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Shortly afterwards,the clouds descended again and snow flurries began to envelop the ship.  But as I looked over the railing, the telltale sign of the explosive exhalations of humpback whales appeared, and the ship altered course to get closer (see image below).

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Humpback Whale Alongside Ship

(Technical Data: Nikon D800E with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, extended to 70mm; exposure 1/160th sec @ f/6.3, ISO 800)

The image above is uncropped, full frame.  The whale was  essentially next to the ship’s hull but was unconcerned by our presence. It became quickly apparent that the combination of low light and the ship’s motion would force some compromises on exposure choices. Normally I would have preferred a lower ISO and smaller aperture to ensure a sharp image.  This would become a recurring theme in the journey.

Less than 4 hours after the encounter with the whales, we arrived in Wilhelmina Bay and were treated to a spectacular combination of clear air and dramatic clouds punctuated by segments of blue sky (see images below).

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Wilhelmina Bay

(Technical Data: Nikon D800E with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, extended to 50mm; exposure 1/800th sec @ f/16, ISO 400)

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Wilhelmina Bay

(Technical Data: Nikon D800E with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, extended to 24mm; exposure 1/640th sec @ f/16, ISO 400)

So far, so good.  A smooth sail across the Drake Passage, it was still early on our first day, and at least a few decent images had already been captured. The next stop was Port Lockroy and, if the conditions permitted, our first Zodiac landing.

Next—Port Lockroy