Description
Golden Dreams, Berowra Waters, NSW
In the Good Old Days, a landscape photographer would look up and see if they thought there would be a good sunset. At this time, you got to know what clouds looked good. Fast forward to 2021 (at time of writing) and apps dominated the world. It’s all Low cloud, Medium Cloud, and High cloud percentages. In general, you want 75 – 100% high cloud to get the lovely colours with a gap on the horizon to the west.
Except tonight. I looked out the window, and there was lots of low/medium clouds, in a real shelf pattern. A bonus was the gap above the horizon I needed, to the west. If the sun were to light from below that lot, well… (and no I didn’t look at the app). For once I arrived well in time. Set up in a good position, and waited. It’s a long way down from up there. After that, I tried a few practice panoramas to make sure the tripod was level as the sun lowered.
And then this happened. A half-and-half ‘Golden Dreams’ in the sky. If you look carefully at the setting sun, there is a little wisp of vertical cloud which has acted as a ‘curtain’ and altered the way the light falls to the north and south. At first, the sun illuminated the underside of the cloud shelf with really vibrant light, and the glow was strong enough to be reflected off the water way below. Next – many, many, shades of straw, gold, and bronze filled the frame with colour.
Finally – It’s a four image stitch, cropped to a 2:4 to 1 ratio. With the practice I had worked out where the peripheral rocks and trees should be – and they almost ended up there! It is always a difficulty to pre-visualise when you can’t see the final scene in the viewfinder. (I think I will write a landscape photography blog on that one) Available as landscape photography for sale onto your wall!