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December 2005
I get the impression that most people are under the illusion that good landscape photography is just about being in a beautiful place with a camera
in your hand. I have many friends who, bless them, think that a summer lunchtime stroll through the country would be great as I could then take lots
of nice photographs at the same time. They believe that being in a picturesque location is all that is required to take beautiful photographs. But
it isn't. More than anything else, it's about being at a beautiful time. Even the mundane can be transformed into something amazing when the
light is right. This is why at 5:30am last Saturday morning, I donned several layers and a big, fluffy hat, filled a flask full of hot tea and drove
out to a local village to take photographs of the clear and frosty dawn.
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Dawn at Great Gaddesden. |
Despite being a landscape photographer, I struggle out of bed in the morning as much as the next person does. When the sun hasn't risen and the central
heating hasn't kicked in yet, it's so much easier to just turn over in bed and decide to head out on another morning instead, and I must admit to having
done that more times than I probably should have done. But when, like now, the calendar is nearing its shortest day, the early starts are at a much more
respectable time and clear, crisp mornings are not to be passed up on without a very good reason.
I had never been to Great Gaddesden, or the neighbouring tiny hamlet of Water End, in Hertfordshire, before. The early morning drive out there would
serve as both a recce of the area and hopefully produce one or two good photographs too. Some previous research had called the village "a
photographer's paradise" and I was hoping that this would prove true. I was not disappointed. The village itself is a visual feast, with many
old buildings and wonderful architecture, like the 19th century medieval-style arched bridge at Water End. But it is the river that runs through the
centre of the village that is its crowning glory. On this early morning, the reed beds bordering the river had frosted over, with each individual reed
glinting in the light of the rising sun. I tentatively stepped onto the reeds to test if the frost had frozen them just enough to hold my weight, and I
literally walked on the water to get closer to the partially frozen river itself. Ducks were swimming on it where they still could, and the pink sky
caused by the rising sun was reflecting on the ice. But the most hypnotising of all was the light mist swirling over the river as the sun's weak rays
warmed it, giving the place an ethereal tranquillity.
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A frosty dawn at Water End. |
The river itself is actually a rare chalk stream. The chalk bed lying underneath the stream filters the water and makes it pure and clear, which
enables it to support various plants and wildlife including some of the more rare species, including the water vole. Although as I didn't notice any,
they were presumably all still asleep while I was there! Around the stream at Great Gaddesden are flood meadows - made up of wet grassland and marsh.
Again another wildlife haven. Many birds and wildfowl over-winter in these meadows, and at 6:30 in the morning, there is little to be heard except for
their morning calls.
If it weren't for the speed of the rising sun, as well as the freezing water of the stream slowly beginning to seep in through my walking boots,
forcing me to keep focussed, it would have been very easy to loose myself to the beauty and tranquillity of the place. Every step further forward
through the reeds revealed a new and delightful take on the overall scene; and the sun continually climbing higher in the sky constantly shifted the
highlights and shadows making every second a different breathtaking vista from the last.
The sun was rising fast and with each press of the shutter, I had to take another meter reading to make sure that my exposures were correct. Fiddling
around with neutral density filters with numb fingers while standing precariously on a frozen stream in the early hours is definitely not the easiest
of tasks. But the contrast between the bright sky and the land, which had not yet been bathed by the sun's golden morning light, was extreme and the
only way to make sure that I captured both the colour in the sky and the detail of the foreground reeds which were in shadow was to use the graduated
filters.
However, by 8:30am, the golden hour of post-sunrise had given way to a more ordinary morning light, and it was time to make my way back to the car,
trying to get the blood circulating again in my frozen fingers, and head back for the warmth of my now centrally heated home for a well deserved hot
brunch.
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