2 December, 2011
Patience is often said to be one of the greatest virtues a photographer can have. Well, I must be a virtuous photographer indeed. I’ve waited years to capture the sun rising behind Dunnideer and Bennachie, aiming to get the precise moment the light starts flooding across the neighbouring farmland and house, then spills on to us. This morning looked promising—although many others have done, too—so I walked up the hill, set up my camera and waited…
The sky has to be just right. There needs to be thin cloud high in the sky to reflect the light back down and act as a palette. There needs to be a ribbon of solid cloud just above the horizon to add interest to the sky. The sun has to unobscured by cloud behind the horizon. The sky needs to be clean and still, which means rain the evening before, no wind and a crisp, cold morning.
The time of year has to be right to get the sun nicely framed with Dunnideer. If it’s too far to the west, the fringe of trees is too intrusive. Too close to Dunnideer and the frame isn’t as balanced. Too far to the east and the other belt of trees break up the crisp horizon I’m after.
My timing has to be spot on, too. It takes only a couple of minutes for the sun to clear the horizon and the actual moment I’ve been waiting for lasts for just four or five seconds within that longer moment. All my camera settings have to be right and ready for that precise point, without worrying too much about the light on either side of it.
As I wait, I can use the zoom to capture the wider changes but I have to remain ready.
Almost there…
The sun starts to spill over the hills…
Here comes the flood of light…
Caught it!
I’ve seen this a couple of times before but, until now, I’d not been able to capture the precise moment the light spills over our neighbour’s house and the field beyond, picking out the highlights of our croft. Half a second later and all was light. So, what to do next? Well, I’d like to get a sunrise directly behind the ruins on Dunnideer with the line breaking through the central hole. Watch this space in, oh, five or six years time…
(Click through for larger images.)
These are very nice. I usually can’t get up that early. I wish I had a clear view of horizon
Thanks. I didn’t have to be up early to capture this one, although I was actually up early in any case. I don’t photograph many summer sunrises as they occur well before 5am.
Beautiful!!!!!
Its gorgeous! I can’t imagine seeing that (almost) every morning, would make getting out of bed a little easier I would think!
We don’t see this sort of sunrise very often as it needs a very specific set of conditions to be in place. I’ve seen it no more than half a dozen times in the past seven years or so, while it was the first time I managed to capture it on camera.
This series of photos gave me goose bumps – they’re that good. What a thing to catch this glory!