Onegav

Tonight I was in fates hands. As I left work at about 5:45pm, the sun was still burning bright, on an unusually clear day followng the recent 10 day long down pour of rain we’ve had. I thought I might get the chance to take a photograph in day light, and the light was great too.

Not only that, but the moon was up early, and in a very slim cresent shape, it looked prime for a photograph.

Unfortunately, not long after joining the motorway I came to a halt, and when I switched the satnav on, it told me there had been two car accidents up ahead.

I used to get frustrated with being stuck in traffic, and in fact I still do, I cant stand it; however when its due to an accident, it always makes me think that i’m only being slowed down, someone has portentially been really serously hurt.

Thankfully, as I passed the accident site it didn’t look like anyone had been seriously hurt, judging by the damage on the cars.

Its a sobering reminder of how fragile life can be though.

So, with the motorway still at a stand still, I took the next available exit, about an hour later. The side roads were really busy too, the M56 is really the only link between North Wales and the Chester area, and Liverpool, Merseyside and Manchester in the North West of England. So its a really busy bit of road especially around rush hour, and any issues on the M56 mean the surrounding B roads get really clogged up.

The congested side roads pushed me into going deeper and deeper off track, down narrower and narrower lanes. At a couple of points I was purely following the sat nav, even though I was only a few miles from home.

I kept one eye on the moon though, as now the light had completely faded, it seemed like an obvious subject to try and photograph.

Amazingly, I happend upon “Ridge Way”, the lane I’d been down just yesterday for the post “Last Light“. I’d been struggling to find anywhere to stop on my route so far, so knowing of a spot down Ridge Way that I stopped at yesterday, I went down and parked up in the same spot.

I did wonder if I could capture that single light I noticed yesterday, however it wasn’t pitch black yet, so that shot wasn’t on the cards. However the moon was just about to dip behind the trees, and with cars trundling slowly up the lane with their lights blazing, I thought that might make for an interesting composition.

So I sent my camera on its tripod, and dialled in a really long exposure with some added exposure bracketing to capture the maximim dynamic range I could. I also took some shots of the landscape I took yesterday, to capture the scene from a night time perspective.

They look pretty cool I think, however its todays main photograph I really like, I just love the way the cars lights illuminate the trees from underneath; contrasting against the deep blue sky and tree tops, the orange glow underneath the “tunnel” the trees are making its really neat! The hint of a field at the bottom and the tree to the left, gives some feeling of perspective and depth, and frames it all off for me.

Learnings – amazing really, the same journey I took yesterday, but in totally different circumstances and, with a totally different frame of mind, felt worlds apart. I cant quantify it, or place much logic to it, but I do find your emotions come through in photographs you take. Even though there cannot possibly be a literal connection between a human emotion and a digital, mechanical object; somehow, emotion you feel does transpose into images you capture.