Hi All 👋 I was out with Lensy for a dawn walk yesterday, visiting what has become my favourite sunrise spot. There’s a post that Lensy usually sits on for his shoot, but I found a new seat for him.
In Scotland at the moment we haven’t quite got into the green phase of spring. The Trees are only just starting to sprout & the wildflowers are not yet coming out to play; it’s almost a very autumnal scene on the moorland. April colours are a palette of browns, greys, golds, all set off by bright blue skies.
These shots I’m sharing with you today were all taken yesterday, just after sunrise. What is special about the April colours here, is the cleanness of the air. As we move through spring into summer, an inversion sets in — a quick meteorological lesson: Ordinarily temperature decreases with height, but during the summer months when high pressure is more prevalent over Scotland, cold air from higher up in the atmosphere sinks, dries out & warms up, forming a layer where the temperature actually increases with height — the inversion (usually around 2000-3000ft). This acts as a physical boundary in the lower atmosphere, trapping dust & industrial particulates lower down, causing haze. At present, with low pressure dominating, this is not the case, with very crisp, clear air and fantastic natural colours.
Seemed an obvious to combine the two challenges in the one post. I’ve done some very basic editing on this one, using Apple’s embedded photo editing software.
The original
The first edit is a basic square crop, normal way up & inverted.
Square crop, normal & inverted
For the next edit, I dropped the light to it’s lowest setting. A lot of detail in the shot is lost, but the colours really come into their own with a rich contrast between the blue & yellow.
Minimal light setting
The opposite, this time. I ramped the light setting right up; the colours wash out to a degree, but the foreground detail in Lensy & the ice covered log he’s sat on become discernible.
Max light setting
Trying something different this time — I’ve desaturated shots before to give a washed out look, but never single colours. For this one I desaturated all the colours apart from blue to give a colder feel to match the sub zero temperature that this was shot in. The difference is quite subtle, hence the slider (the left hand shot is the original).
My favourite natural light is in the dawn; with the greatest contrast between light & dark. The same can be said for dusk, but I’m very much a morning person!
