This time of year (August) when the heather is out, a set of popular locations in this region will be mentioned, discussed and many images posted online.
Several of the club’s photographers have visited Roydon Common near Kings Lynn and an opportunity to shoot it at sunrise was grabbed by myself and a fellow photographer.
I’ve shot this location three times before, once at sunrise and twice at sunset.
In previous seasons, the heather hasn’t been that great and in recent years, very hot weather has led to scorched plantation diminishing the opportunities for lush colours.
This year was different – the wettest June on record and a slow start to Summer meant the reports of heather were favourable, and it’s a time where you need to get out and shoot as much as you can.
With a meet time of 04:30, and just under an hour’s drive, it meant a brutal get up time of 03:15. Ouch!
The Shoot
After arriving in the dark, we made our way across the common to the far side checking out the conditions of the heather and watching the sky.
We found our preferred initial spots, and set up while watching the sky.
We were treated to a stunning sunrise sky – my first shot is below where I chose to capture the mixture of colours of the bracken and ferns in the foreground with the trees and awesome sky in the background.
By being a clutz, I captured an unintentional camera movement image:
We were getting attacked quite viciously by Roydon mosquitoes, to the extent that we put our hoods on our tops up.
Those mozzies were not giving up and I found them attacking my face and backs of my hands as the only exposed parts offering them a feed.
I moved around a bit trying to balance swatting them away with taking shots, and waving my arms like someone hoping rescue services would airlift me to safety.
My next shot was similar to my first except I’ve moved further to the left, with the sunrise now rising fast, there was a glow to it which creates quite a nice effect.
Of course, this one can’t ever go in a club competition… because this is what the comment will be…
Lovely colours, well seen, bit of blown highlights in the sky which is a shame… 7.
Well guess what? According to Lightroom, there’s no blown highlights so stick that up your wahooney judge! Perhaps a histogram needs to be provided in future? Bitter? Yes.
To be fair, the composition isn’t 100% the best but I was so intent on grabbing the scene with that sky, I didn’t have time to mess about.
The same criticism but to a much lesser extent could be said for the next shot.
I took some more shots of trees but single ones, and I got the drone up to get some aerial shots.
Once I’d flown the drone around and captured lots of video and some stills, I landed and grabbed a few more stills with the camera.
I took the following shot because I liked the concrete structure alongside the tree, and I really liked the diagonal rows of purple and green which in my hopeful mind creates natural layers to the foreground.
I’ve spent some time Googling what that concrete structure is and it’s an old artillery observation tower from World War II. The area this structure sits in appears to be called Grimston Warren sitting alongside Roydon Common.
Below is a montage of some of my final shots:
In post-production, I looked at my drone stills and merged the bracketed shots in Lightroom and was very pleased with the images.
I cropped one particular image which made me think of The Joker.
I really like this shot, and am pleased to have created something a little different.
We had both fired off a lot of shots and had enjoyed a spectacular morning.
That was a wrap, and with the usual debrief over coffee back at the car park, we made our way home.
That clown like man Ronald hypnotised me with the lure of bacon and egg into his drive-thru where I gave in with zero resistance.
I noticed that although I had not got bitten by mosquitoes, they had left me with a forehead like I had measles, but those spots soon disappeared later in the day.
I got home, went to bed for a 2-3 hour recovery nap and was thrilled that I had some good shots in my collection.
Onwards and upwards…