The Niagara of Southern India, Athirappilly Falls, situated in the Thrissur district, is the largest waterfall in Kerala, India and rises over a 100 feet above the river bed. Fed by the Chalakudy River, this incredibly gorgeous waterfall lies about 40kms from Kochi, in a protected wildlife reserve. The falls have featured in many superhit Bollywood movies including Guru, Dil Se, Raavan and the recent blockbuster Bahubali.

I visited the falls in April when the skies are clear and the water flow is depleted. I could then get up close to the falls and not have the overspray make it impossible to shoot. In the peak monsoon months when the falls are in full flow, it would be next to impossible to take a shot.

The shot is a composite of 3 frames, 2 for the foreground and a tracked sky. I went down to the river level before sunset and shot from the base in the blue hour. To get more of the rocks in the foreground the focal length was kept at 12mm, while the falls were shot at 24mm. I later went up to the top of the falls in order to get an unobstructed horizon in order to shoot the milky way. The milky way was processed in PixInsight before being imported into Photoshop and then blended together with the foreground. The foreground rocks were less than a foot away from the lens and was blended with the 24mm shot of the falls and then combined with the sky shot which was also taken at 24mm.