Yesterday morning I was up before the sun as I had to get ready for a 1-to-1 Workshop, the skies were clear and it was looking like a good sunrise so I gulped down a Coffee and headed outside.
Although sunrise was 7:14am, it took over 20 minutes before it appeared over the ridges of the Serra and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
{Click image(s) to view on Flickr - opens in new tab}I was awake at around sunrise this morning, I looked out of the bedroom window, which faces south, and couldn’t understand why the sky looked grey, but there wasn’t a cloud in my view. So I moved to the Northern side of the house and it was a different view completely.
We are having hot air coming over from Africa currently with temperatures yesterday reaching 43 degrees, it could get even higher over the next few days with rumor of it reaching 50! This warm air is also bringing dust and combined with a small cloud masking the sun, I could see an amazing sunrise coming.
Still in my “Oscar the Grouch” bed shorts (maybe too much info!) I grabbed a camera, lens and tripod and headed outside. Just a few moments later, this was the stunning view!
{Click image(s) to view on Flickr - opens in new tab}A few weeks ago, I was up before sunrise to get some mist filled valley shots but the mist was just too thick, you may remember this post.
I stumbled across another photo which at the time I didn’t like so never published anywhere, however, I have now changed my mind and here it is. The sun was rising to the right of the photo causing a purple haze to shine through the mist. The trees are Cork Oak and you can see where the bark has been harvested at the bottoms.
{Click image(s) to view on Flickr - opens in new tab}After (more) rain yesterday and a slight increase in temperature, I thought that we’d get a misty morning in the hills this morning. The forecast was for clear skies, so a perfect opportunity for photographs looking over misty valleys.
I was up way before first light and headed to high ground in hope I would be above the mist, I wasn’t. It was thick mist everywhere, the sun came up and I couldn’t tell the difference. I gave up and reverted to Plan B. I pointed the camera at an old dead Cork Oak Tree and waited until the sun was strong enough to just about shine through.
{Click image(s) to view on Flickr - opens in new tab}What to do when the persistent rain keeps coming? There is always the option of photographing the rain but as I’ve only just about dried out after our very wet Nature Photography Walk, I have been practicing my Lightroom and Photoshop skills. I have recently started to play with “Luminosity Blending” which takes two (or more) images shot of the same scene with different exposures and blending them together by selecting dark and light areas. The idea is to achieve a photo that is closest to the dynamic range that a human eye can see whereas a camera sensor cannot. If you want to see what I mean, take a photo inside your house including the inside and the outside through a window. The camera will struggle to expose for the outside light and the inside dark but your eyes will see it all fine.
This technique of blending is similar to HDR however, it has far greater control of the blending.
So here is a photo that I took back in October 2017. It is made from 2 exposures, 1 exposed for the sky so the foreground and village were underexposed and another exposed for the village so the sky was overexposed. They are blended together to use the sky from the first exposure and the foreground from the 2nd exposure.
{Click image(s) to view on Flickr - opens in new tab}Time to introduce the new member to our household, meet Wally.
We rescued Wally from a busy two-lane road he was wandering right down the middle of, against the rush hour traffic. No collar, no Micro-chip and the all-clear from our vets resulted in us keeping him. Our vet (and a few other people) think he was probably abandoned either because he’s not small and cute anymore (well at 7 months old, I still think he is!) or a failed Hunter’s Dog. Although getting better, both scenarios are still common in Portugal.
Expect to see a lots of photos, he’s a very willing (sometimes) model and great for practice snapping. Here are some photos against the back-lit sunrise this morning.
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