Soggy Rocks – Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I was determined to get out a couple of times over the holiday period and I mistakenly chose to be guided by the weather forecast (Metcheck in this case) and decided to go out on the Sunday morning instead of the Saturday morning (the one after christmas). The Saturday morning was supposed to be overcast, but not raining, but the Sunday was predicted as magnificent sunshine with a scattering of clouds.
Things looked slightly awry when I woke up on Saturday morning to one of the best coloured sunrises I’ve seen in a long time and so I thought I’d give the day a go and wet out at 11am to Brimham Rocks near Harrogate. Upon arriving the sky was clear with some colour but some clouds were starting to show. I found a location that I hadn’t seen before and that showed some potential and setup my camera, as soon as the first photograph was taken with my SLR the clouds really rolled in. I thought about wandering around to look for other locations but I decided to change my usual approach and stuck it out for the long term, waiting for some interesting light.. How long could it take?!
After fifteen minutes, the real rain started to come down. Thankfully, I had a large flask of coffee and a windproof ultra large umbrella. I took a shot for the record just to show what it looked like (and to see what pouring rain looked like) which appears below…
At this point, I could either give up or stick it out until either I got a shot or the light went (2 hours later). Two or three times I almost packed up but after just over an hour, I could see patches of light coming through. Nothing special but possibly enough to give some interest in the sky. The picture below is a black and white conversion at this point when some light crossed the foreground.
Another half an hour (and one point where I did actually pack up and start walking back) and I finally got some light that looked OK and took the picture at the top of this peice. Unfortunately, the light levels in the foregroun were very low and despite a 2 stop hard and 2 stop soft, I still had to merge a digital shot to get this picture. I did get one large format of the last picture so we’ll see what it does in due course.
One thing I have to say is that I know the picture I have is a lot better than the one I would have grabbed at the start. Whether I would have found anything better is another matter. I’m happy that I’ve done the subject some justice and I also know what sort of light I want to repeat the shot .
