Healey Dell Nature Reserve, Rochdale - Playtime

Over the Christmas break I went out to a local beauty spot for a little play with my camera. Not something I often get chance to do.
I do not normally do landscape photography. However, inspired by a friend who takes a lot of pictures in Healey Dell, I chose to venture out and experiment with slow shutter speeds to capture the fast-flowing water of the river. This was aided by the fact that there has been so much rain fall recently in Rochdale, and the river is much fuller than usual. It also meant that the river was cleaner, as some of the froth and muck that gets trapped in the gulleys has been washed away. This useful little piece of information was gleaned from a particularly friendly Whitworth gentleman who was happy to chat while I was setting up one of the series of shots.
Not sure how I would fare at my first attempt, I was particularly pleased with the results, and thought I would share some of them here.
My satisfaction with the photos was further reinforced by the comments received when I shared them on my Facebook page.
While this does not fully relate to my normal scope of work, I find that stretching yourself in different areas of photography often helps to reinforce, enhance and improve what you do in the other areas, as some of the creativeness, techniques, and experience does carry over, as well as making you more aware of what is possible with your equipment.
If you click on the images you can see a larger version, and click through the set.
Hope you enjoy the pics...and thanks for looking!!

For those interested in the technical side. I used a polarising filter purely to reduce the light levels, in order to extend the shutter speed to generally between 5 and 8 seconds (although the polarising effect did help with some of the reflections off the wet surfaces, such as the leaves/moss). Camera used was a Canon 5D Mk2 with either a 70-200L IS or a 17-40L F4, ISO100 and smallest aperture on each (F32 or F22 respectively).

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