Photo of the Week: July 17, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Normally I keep my selections in season, but after a particularly warm and sweaty visit to the Eilat Mountains this month, I felt the need for a visual cool down. Some years ago I visited Sa’ar Falls in the Hermon Nature Reserve on the Golan Heights, but the falls weren’t falling at all; the stream was bone dry. Last March, however, the falls were gushing with spring runoff and snow melt from the Hermon.

I guess I had bypassed the danger since no signs warned me not to continue along my route to this vista. OK, so I did crawl in the mud under a barbed-wire fence and gingerly navigate a wet, rocky slope that plummeted to the river below. I even endured the curious gaze of a furry hyrax who crawled out from under a rock to investigate the intruder. But I was determined.

Nowhere along the paved walkway provided for the throngs of tourists who come here, however, could one spy all three sections of the falls, which I wanted to capture in one frame. The sun had already climbed high, so I set two of my exposure controls – the aperture and ISO – to their minimum settings to allow the least amount of light to enter the camera. In this way, I could hold the shutter open long enough (in this shot 1/5 sec.) to create the silky, milky effect I love to see in moving water. All in a morning’s enjoyable adventure.

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TECHNICAL DATA: Camera: Nikon D300, tripod mounted, manual exposure, center-weighted metering mode, f20 at 1/5th sec., ISO 100. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 28-105 zoom at 28mm. Date: Mar 1, 2013, 8:54 a.m. Location: Hermon Nature Reserve, Golan Heights.