Early start

A simple question for a landscape photography exam.

Question : If sunrise is at 04.50 hrs and it takes 55 mins to travel by car, what time does the alarm clock need to be set for?

Answer :  Working back from sunrise, allow; 30 mins to find some inspiration; 30 mins walk in head torch; 5 mins to get suited and booted; 10 mins for wildlife encounters on the car journey; 25 mins for 2 cups of coffee, morning ablutions and regain full consciousness and 10 mins snooze = 02.05 hrs

Dawn

In actual fact the wildlife was far more arresting with headlights revealing the need to brake for Deer, Fox cubs and twice stops made for hedgehogs that curled up and needed to be carefully shoed out of the road to the safety of the verge. It did occur to me that if BBC broadcast Springwatch live at dawn there'd be a lot more interesting fauna seen.

It's been a few years since conditions presented the opportunity to revisit this location for dawn, the late flowering of Mossy Saxifrage with sunrise to the NE.  The last visit was met with rain, this visit revealed an extensive bank of low cloud/fog over the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border exactly where the sun would rise, sigh. A clear  sky overhead, meant a less than optimal twilight illumination. Also hill fog was ominously covering the visible hill summits to the north and depressingly a surprisingly brisk and chilly NW'ly wind was vortexing down from the hill above. The wind has been a notable feature of late spring/early summer 2015 on the western side of the UK and sadly it has impacted on trips and subject matter, a pity really as the air clarity has been excellent.

Warm light

The prospect of flowers illuminated by first light, bit the dust. A less than convincing image of another view was made, that tried to minimise any foreground elements that could be affected by the wind, whilst waiting for light levels to rise as the sun cleared the cloud. Sometimes there are just too many compromises made prior to a composition.

Sheltered Mossy Saxifrage

It is frustrating when events don't meet expectations, doubly so when the location has so much interest for the flora and geomorphology, but the wind strength meant that isolated cushions of flowers needed to be sought out in the lee of trees, boulder lobes or sheltered hollows in the block field debris. In hindsight,  maybe I should have gone with an image in a low light, long exposure, of a blurred flower carpet? Maybe next year?

Mossy Saxifrage