Great news, after charging by car battery up over night, I gave it a quick try this morning, and it tried to start! So, another 12hrs charging and I think we have a good chance of being back in business again and on the road. I’ve got a couple of other bits I’m going to check over and make sure are in order, but early signs are promising.
Onto more photographic matters, and this morning I set my alarm for a reasonable 7:30am, so I could be up and about for sun rise. It was -2 degrees celsius last night, and so I was hopeful of a heavy frost this morning and hopeful for some mist rising off the local rivers.
I headed down to the view of the viaduct I found recently in my post “Superman 3“, if you remember I mentioned there might be a nice image of it as it crosses the river. Its not strictly a public access area, and as such, as I went deeper and deeper off the beaten track, the undergrowth grew taller and taller. Despite my determination, it became apparent I wasn’t going to get to the exact spot I was aiming for, and not wanting to be out too long I abandoned that mission for another day.
On the way though, I captured some really nice images of the sun beaming through the arches of the viaduct. It would have be magic to have had some interest in the sky too, but I’m not complaining too much, I do feel the blank canvas of a sky helps with the ethereal mood!
Another intersting (I think) point in the two images above, is how different they feel. The composition is slightly different of course, but the main difference is that in the first image I included six arches, and in the second I included five. The arch with the sun behind it (an so also the most in shadow) is carrying an enormous amount of “visual weight”, and I think in the second image its over powering the foreground bush, hence why it didn’t quit make it to todays main photograph.
In this image, putting the forground bush front, centre and large in the frame helps balance that powerful and visually weighty “sun burst pillar”.
I wandered a little further round, to see if I could scout out a route to where I wanted to go for the future, and when I eventually came across a track; left would have taken me in the direction I wanted to go, however it was time to head back and so I took the right hand path.
Before I disappeared down the track back to civilisation, I looked back and took some images of the viaduct set against a foreground of frozen earth, with the morning sun beating down on it. The ice wasn’t going to be around for long today, and I was thankful of getting out early to capture not only the long shadows from the morning sun, but also the frozen ground.
I’ve no doubt we’ll have a few more mornings like this over the coming weeks, and as I zero in on my location I’m pretty confident I’ll get the shot I’m after. An image of the mist rolling up off the river, lit by the low slung rays of the sunrise coming through arches of the viaduct, which in turn will be casting those gorgeous long shadows. I have the image I want very clearly etched in my mind, and were right bang on the time of year to capture it too!
Learnings – I used my polarising fiter this morning, to take that bit of glare off the frost, and the ice, so that the detail I was trying to capture didn’t get blown out. I think it worked really well for the images here, though some of the images I took of the river as test shots, had the mist pretty much eliminated by the polarisation. It’ll be an interesting challenge to capture everything I’m trying to capture in this “misty morning arch way” image.
You will of course, be the first to see how it pans out!
Onegav 