Late Start

The next adventure begins.

I have come to realise I need a flight departure time and a deadline to arrive at the airport to check-in. This kind of trip, in just another part of England, doesn't require me to be somewhere at a precise time and what this leads to is a rather laid-back approach to leaving. In the end I left some time around lunchtime rather than 'early' as intended, but giving plenty of time, I thought, to arrive at my first location for a sunset photograph.

The first photo in this footprint shows the first of the traffic queues, somewhere north of Stoke-on-Trent due to an accident, then there was another delay further on for the same reason, and that was after Google rerouted me to avoid an accident near Warrington. Then there were queues because there were queues and slow vehicles etc, so I was more than pleased to arrive at my location not far from Malham Tarn, which in itself is not all that far from Malham Cove, which is near the village of Malham - even though it was much later than expected.

I arrived just too late for sunset because the sun had just set, but undeterred I still popped my boots on, grabbed a waterproof coat and gloves and headed off to photograph a tree. You can see the tree in the second photo - the one furthest away, just above the door mirror. The third photo is a photo of my camera taking the photo ... rivetting stuff or what!

The light was fading quickly and in the short time I was near that tree I was blown by the wind, the tree was blown by the wind and we both got rained on. Having captured the first image, which I'm not sure will be anything special, I carefully made my way back to the van.

The skies cleared for a little while and I thought there may be a chance of a starry sky shot, but in no time fog cloaked the scene and ended that prospect for the night. I've set my alarm to try for the tree at sunrise even though the forecast is for heavy rain at that time. We shall see.

In case you are wondering what the fascination is to photograph that tree, it is an iconic shot around these parts due to it being one of only a few trees in the area and one of the few surrounded by those limestone rocks, which make for a great composition. I thought it would be an easy target for the first photo, though maybe it's not so easy after allRead more