We live in a valley that stretches from east to west, and one of the most exciting lighting conditions is, when either just after sunrise or before sunset all of the valley is below dark clouds, and only in the far east or west the rising or setting sun shines brightly from between the cloud cover and the horizon. Light can’t get any more “magic”.
Exactly that happened this morning. I woke up, opened my eyes, and what I saw through the window was just what you see in the Image of the Day. Knowing that I had minutes at most, I jumped out of bed, grabbed the camera, quickly changed the Sigma 70/2.8 for the Nikon 18-200 VR, and ran out into the garden. And really, less than 5 minutes later all was gone. The rising sun hit the clouds and the golden light vanished altogether.
40 minutes later the sun broke free once more, and from then on it shone all day. The Image of the Day was shot at 26mm, f9, 1/100s and ISO 320 (in the hurry I had forgotten to set minimum shutter speed down to something more reasonable with this lens), and this second image with 18mm, f9, 1/400s and ISO 200.
The Song of the Day is “Sunday Morning” from the Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut album “The Velvet Underground & Nico”. See Lou Reed as a child on YouTube 🙂