There's a good reason why it's called the 'magic' or 'golden' hour. IT only took an early morning photo shoot at a friend's rural property to remind me of the stunning impact of that beautiful golden dawn light on my landscape images.
A friend of us had recently moved to a rural property in New South Wales. We were told it was in a beautiful area, so my wife and I were very excited to be invited to admire her new property. We decided to meet up early so I could take photos in the morning light. There was going to be a good chance we were going to see some wildlife as well. So we got up at 5:00 am and where at our friend's place not much later. And truth be told, the place was absolutely stunning! And even better, there was a little fog hanging around, creating an almost mystical atmosphere that would bode well for my photo shoot. My photographer's heart was starting to beat faster.
Spider Webs
The fences around the property had spider webs everywhere. The spiders clearly had been busy! It prompted me to take one of those 'classical' shots with the rising sun backlighting one of the webs. I love how the light accentuates the individual threads of the web in this picture, making them stand out against the background and providing them with an almost silvery look.
Morning Fog
As mentioned, there was a beautiful layer of fog hanging around. Maybe up to one or two meters above the ground. It gave the place a mystical, almost ethereal look. Combined with the soft morning light it created a wonderful atmosphere for this picture. The fog floats in between the darker foreground of tall grass and the trees illuminated by the rising sun in the background, almost separating the two.
Deer
One of the first animals we encountered was a herd of deer. Feral deer are unfortunately a pest in Australia. They're not native animals of this country and were introduced by European settlers as domestic livestock. Nonetheless, the sight of these deer in the morning mist was very special. We quietly and carefully tried getting a little closer to them, but they had already noticed us and were starting to make their way to the back of the property, joining many other deer who were already there.
Swamphen
I have yet to be convinced of the beauty of the swamphen. With so many other beautiful birds in Australia - think rainbow lorikeets, black cockatoos, crimson rosellas, and kingfishers - it's hard to be impressed with the swamphen. However, they are plentiful in the area where we live, and we were bound to see some on our friend's property. While not particularly shy, the one in this picture eventually took off when we slowly got nearer to where it was foraging. I ended up getting a nice shot with the wings of the bird spread in a beautiful crescent. Oh, and I flipped the picture in post-processing. Apparently, birds in flight look better flying right to left than left to right. Who knew?
Backlight
Did I mention the backlighting and the fog? I love how this combination worked for this shot. There is again an ethereal feeling that is being invoked by the soft light and the warm tones. While I slightly bumped up the contrast in post-processing, I kept it low enough to preserve the softness of the image.
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