There are many times when, during late Spring and Summer, I’ll take advantage of the light nights and wander off at tea time into the Dales or North York Moors primarily to relax but if I can bag an image too, that’s even better.

Spring Squall

Due to the limited time on an evening, I find it useful to think about a specific location to visit before heading out, otherwise you can end up wasting time simply wandering around aimlessly with nothing to show for it. Therefore, I tend to search for locations in advance and in some cases make notes in a diary to visit later. These standing stones were a typical example. In-fact I didn’t even know they existed until I noticed them on another photographers website a while back. So I checked them out and even worked out a pleasing composition. All I needed now was the right light - something for another day. I only made a mental note but this is enough sometimes.

A week ago, as it was the start of my Easter break I decided to grab my kit and head off to Hawnby as this is only half an hour drive for me and an ideal location when sunset is still only around 7.45 ish. En-route I noticed an interesting and very large Cumulus cloud formation developing in the general direction of Hawnby Hill which I thought would make an ideal back-drop to the hill itself. Unfortunately I knew I wouldn’t have time to set up a decent image from there as I hadn’t done a reccé of the hill for months. However, I remembered the standing stones and mentally worked out that the cloud formation would be in the right direction.

Having set up the camera I noticed that the large Cumulus by now had significantly shrunk in size but nevertheless would still make a pleasing image. Just as I was about to make some meter readings of the scene the heavens opened. Rushing to my bag to close it and wrapping up the camera with my dark cloth all I could do was watch a bleak scene take over in front of me totally masking the thunderous Cumulus cloud I had initially intended to shoot. Fortunately, I could see by its speed that this heavy squall would be fleeting so I decided to stick it out and wait for it to pass.

As the squall started to pass I noticed a wonderful end trail of rain being lit by the sun directly behind me. Just one look through the screen told me this was the image to capture. At this point though all my filters needed drying off, as did the lens and I still needed to take a light meter reading. At this point it feels you are doing ten things at once (very difficult for a man I’ve been told!).

Thoroughly soaked, I finally tripped the shutter very happy. It was particularly pleasing knowing that the scene wasn’t entirely handed on a plate having spent time there previously, but the squall was a bonus nevertheless!

Technical Data: 90mm on front tilt focus, 1s@ f22, Velvia 50, 0.3ND Grad.

As usual you can find this image and more in the ‘Recently Added’ section of the Gallery, Enjoy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 11th, 2010 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Mark Banks Photography Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.