Picture Tales: Landscape - Image 02

South America's Iguaçu Falls straddle the border between Brazil and Argentina and, at four times the width of Niagara, are the largest waterfalls in the world. This is the Devil's Throat, at 269 feet high one of the largest of the 275 separate cascades collectively known as Iguaçu. The power of the mighty Rio Iguaçu, which plunges over this precipice 14 miles above its confluence with the Paraná, is such that the ground trembles and the thunder of falling water can be heard from a distance of 3 miles. The image shows just one small part of the 2½ miles of cascades that constitute the spectacle of Iguaçu.

The photograph was taken as a storm approached. The last of the sunshine was still on the water but the background looked quite menacing. The main problem was keeping the camera and lens dry. An oilskin jacket was held overhead and the lens was wiped clear of spray every few seconds. It was impossible to use a tripod because the wooden observation platform on which I was standing was trembling far too much to obtain a sharp image. I therefore used a shutter speed of 1/60 sec to capture an image close to human perception. The foreground water is somewhat blurred but more distant parts of the cascade remain reasonably sharp.