Up in the mornings

25 04 09

I really must get myself a new alarm clock, I'm not keen on electrical things in the bedroom so I have a battery clock, and the alarm pointer is tiny so it's a bit hit and miss. This morning it went off at 4.15 instead of 4.45 and it was too dark to see what the potential of the sunrise was like.

I went back to bed and woke with a start at 5.10, now the sunrise was 5.42am so I was cutting things a bit fine. I was up, out and my first shot at Steel Rigg was timed at 5.39am not bad going and, as it happens, I was there in plenty of time.

Often if there are clouds the best colours appear before the sun rises, (which is why photo magazines tell you to be in place an hour before sunrise) but this morning the sky was clear to the front of me with mist which is a bonus, and just the sort of conditions I like.

Steel Rigg (NY752676) is great, you can be taking photographs almost straight out of the car park, which is what I did this morning. The sun is moving to the north of the crags now so as it rises you get some light on the crag face and if you're lucky it colours up the water on Crag Lough.

At 6.45am the sun appeared behind Hotbank Crag, a lovely red ball and the mist diffused the light nicely so I didn't have problems with flare.

Sheep and lambs wandered around and for some reason a big flock of Black headed Gulls flew over, with my small shutter I have quite a long exposure time so anything moving is just a blur on the resulting photograph. The ewe and lamb did stand still for a while so I'm hoping they'll not need cloning out of my shot, I'm very fond of our local Black face sheep and try to include them in shots where I can. They're so much a part of this area and if you're walking the Hadrian's Wall Path you'll see lots of them.

Just after 6 o'clock I packed up at Steel Rigg and headed home, it was a glorious morning and as I passed the camp site at Winshields Farm I was tempted to sound the car horn so the campers wouldn't miss the best part of the day - I resisted but only just :)

A lovely morning and a joy to be out, and after a hot toast and honey breakfast ot's off to sort through the 70+ photographs I've taken.

Catch you later.