Somehow, this feeling is creeping upon me that I have reached a quota with respect to mindblowing skies. In hindsight, I think I might have even reached that quota some two months ago already. It has been that long since I stood in the field, looking up in awe. Not that there have been no beautiful skies, there sure were some. But always on the days I chose not to go out into the field. For your information, I can usually devote one morning every weekend -in my case Friday to Sunday- to photography. We fixed that morning on the Friday, but in case of a very favourable weather forecast for one of the other days, a switch is negotiable with my very understanding wife. And boy, have we negotiated bigtime over the last two months.
The weatherman (and all of his websites too) promised all kinds of photogenic weather on either Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays, and I was brave enough (or naive?) to adjust my original schedule accordingly. Only to find out that the forecast had changed a few hours before it was time to get up and out. There I was again, peering into a sky that is usually associated with the UK and is only useful as one giant greycard. Or even worse, I remained in the car parked next to the heathland, nodding my head in disbelief, drinking all my coffee at once (for lack of something stronger) and trying to think of a decent substitute for the landscape photography I had planned for. But the worst thing is not being out in the wrong kind of weather, no, the very worst has yet to come. It is that awful next day, when the weather is perfect, that day you filled with obligations, chores and other things that you could have easily done yesterday, but did not because some weather professional made you change your schedule. I truly hope this sounds familiar to all of you, because it will really hurt to find out I am the only one.
To end this rant, here’s an image from yesterday afternoon. When I arrived at the scene, a layer of fog had already covered the ground, and within an hour, my world had become really small. Of course the colors were not as hoped for, but a long exposure (helped by a 3-stop ND filter) squeezed out every bit of color potential. I was glad to know the area so well, as I had a long distance to cover to the car through a blinding combination of darkness and mist. Mission accomplished.
Evening Fog; Canon 5D Mark III w.17-40/4L; 61s at F16 and ISO200; ND filter, ND Grad filter, remote release, tripod
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