This is a sight you don't see too often, thank goodness! It's a picture of the Dangar Falls near Armidale NSW during the great drought of 2009. These falls are a tourist attraction. Not exactly Niagara, but big enough for no sane person to want to go over in a barrel. The water normally tumbles almost 400 feet, about the same as the height of St Paul's Cathedral in London. In 2009, as you can see, the falls were all but dry. You could see the smooth, almost glass-like texture of the rock where it had been smoothed by millennia of falling water. It had to be worth a shot.
Unfortunately, it was late in the afternoon, and the valley was already in dark shadow. Still, I found the best viewpoint I could, (which wasn't very good, but hey! how often do you see a large dried up waterfall?), and took a record shot. The best thing in it is the tree, still with sun on it in the foreground. However no matter what I tried, I couldn't darken down the far wall of the valley. Too much detail had been lost.
I wanted to remember that lonely dried up waterfall at the end of kilometres of dried up dusty road. How did the indigenous people cope in such prolonged droughts in the past. Quite well, actually. Their folklore told them what plants they should eat to get the maximum amount of water. So to commemorate them, and to be honest, save a photo that would otherwise end up in the bin, I conceived "Waterfall Dreaming"
And to think that at one time I could not bear to use Photoshop!
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