As I mentioned in my earlier post, I hadn’t quite realised just how magical light can be at certain times of the day. I’ve always heard advice that ‘the best time to shoot’ is around sunrise and sunset, but never really realised just how good they could be until yesterday.

I’ve shot sunrise before, but that was sunrise itself, rather than anything else. And, having spent the last three years as a student, by which I mean ‘quite unlikely to be up at such an hour as to stand a reasonable chance of catching sunrise, unless he’s still on the way home from the night before’, sunrise hasn’t been the easiest of things to catch – and when it’s time for sunset, well, quite frankly drinking has been more of a pressing concern!

However, seeing the light catch on my sister’s face through the trees as we walked down a wooded path, I made her stop and walk back a few steps  (and then forward a couple, and then back one, and then forward half a step!) to get the perfect spot.

Of course, you can fiddle around with white balances and saturation and all that jazz – and just a little tweaking may have happened here – but you can’t beat the natural quality of the light, the long shadows, and of course the smug feeling that you’ve not cheated!

Boxing Day in my house is the day of the traditional family walk – we take the dogs, anyone who has been foolish enough to join us for the holidays, and head to the beach.

Being the middle of winter, sunset is very early, and luckily this year we had a clear blue sky, allowing the beautiful light of sunset to flood the scene. (My only complaint is that being on the east coast of the UK, once you descend the cliffs to the beach below, you’re stuck mostly in shadow, except at the very edge of the sea!) I must admit, until yesterday, I hadn’t quite realised just how amazing this light is -

This shot was taken quite late in the walk, once we’d come back up the cliff and the sun was almost lost, just hitting the tops of these trees.