The Hidden Sun

There’s nothing so ephemeral as sun rays through cloud, shifting as the clouds move and the sun declines... They’re moments of time never to be recaptured, yet can be frozen in images (I almost typed ‘on film’) for posterity. I took a series of frames when nature made this show as heavy weather blew up over Hastings, on November 15^th, 2012. I was on my fifth UK trip, visiting towns in the south, and Hastings turned on some thick weather. The camera chip handled the contrast amazingly. While the pictures looking away from the sun were flat and soft, as is to be expected on such a grey day, when looking toward the spectacle over the Channel the sense of “light in the darkness” came through profoundly. Minor adjustments to colour and contrast in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Fun with Low Light

This is another of the group I took when leaving England in 2010. This is at the very doors of the Heathrow Terminal, looking across the arrivals area, and just before they turned on the purple neon (find that in an older post). Notice the steel anti-ram-raider bollards—I think I rested the camera on top of one of them to stabilise it. In the previous frame a moving vehicle is blurred, telling you how long the shutter was open, while in this one nothing was moving, creating this beautifully textured, nuanced image. The only adjustment I made is a tiny touch of sharpening, otherwise this is exactly as the chip read the moment. This was November 16^th, 2010, and I was glad to be heading home, as I had been quite unwell on this expedition. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

The Tall Trees

These are Pinus radiata at Kuitpo Forest, south of Adelaide. Kuitpo is farmed timber, and these trees are probably the better part of a hundred years old. The symmetry of the straight trunks struck me with its hint of a vanishing point, while the sun through the pattern they create was irresistible lighting. A simple photo, taken on August 31^st, 2017, on an outing to the woods, but it’s engaging in the sense of ‘you had to be there.’ I can almost smell the pine needles and hear the wind in the tops. Minor adjustments to colour and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.