01/07/2011

Golden Hour

Photographers talk about the golden hour, that hour before sunset and after sunrise, when the light is rich and often golden.
Last night looked promising so off I went.
Called into Cawfields Quarry, it's haymaking/silage making time and fields are being cut literally from dawn to dusk while the weather holds.
I love the patterns made by the cut grass, left in lines to dry.

 Field that carries the Hadrian's Wall Path from Great Chesters Farm east to Cawfields
( well if you're walking w-e that is)

Light on the Cawfields Quarry face was lovely, we don't have many easily accessible bodies of water of the Hadrian's Wall Path but this is one. It was here I saw a Little Owl, managed a grabbed picture otherwise I would just have marked it down as a Tawny Owl. I'm hoping to get a better shot, using my 'big' lens, tried tonight but while the owl was in the same spot it was camera shy tonight. I was getting eaten alive by midges so I made a dignified retreat, Round 1 to the Little Owl.

Cawfields Quarry Lake

Some nice clouds in the sky so I went off to Sycamore Gap, while the sun doesn't actually set behind the tree I hoped the cloud to the east would colour up to make a nice background.
It takes 20 minutes from parking the car to the tree and by the time I got there all the cloud had gone from the bit of sky I needed it in.
Took a photograph looking towards Winshields Crag from Highshields Crag, than another looking towards the east and Hotbank Crag, strange how often the sunset colour is better in the east than in the west.

View west to Winshields Crag from Highshields Crag with the Hadrian's Wall Path snaking through the view.

Looking east over Hotbank Crag and Crag Lough, from Highshields Crag

Then the sun went down and it was nearly all over for another night, on the way back to the car I stopped at one of the other areas of water on this bit of Hadrian's Wall, Crag Lough.
You've probaby seen this view many times but it makes a nice full stop to my outing.

I had a few hours sleep then I was out again for sunrise but I'll save those pictures for another time.
Oh and here's the grab shot of the Little Owl,  massively cropped as it was taken with my 18-200mm lens a fair distance away. Challenge is now to get a 'proper' shot of it.


as always the photo's used in the Blog are copyright of Joan Thirlaway and can't be used without written permission.

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