The Longest Day

The longest day of the year - June 21st (in the northern hemisphere) - the Summer solstice. A day celebrated for thousands of years by cultures around the world. A day marked by rituals, festivals and even linked to mysterious structures like Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza. The day when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky and the hours of daylight are the longest. A day that for me this year, purely by chance turned out to be a very long day indeed.

The day started with an unwelcome sunrise trip to Framlingham Castle. Unwelcome only because I had a booking for the evening to judge a competition at Norwich & District Photographic Society and while I was in the area (with fuel prices being what they are) I was hoping to follow that with some night photography on the Norfolk coast. So all things considered I would have preferred a bit of a lie in the morning before such a long night (I must be getting old).

I had been planning an aerial shot at Framlingham for some time, one which involved certain weather conditions and with the forecast looking perfect for that morning I didn’t want to miss the chance to get it. Landscape photography is all about being in the right place at the right time so I resigned myself to trading a warm bed for a cool blanket of early morning mist and set my alarm for 2.45am!

The vision was to capture the castle rising above a mist shrouded mere with the Suffolk countryside stretching out towards the distant sunrise so I had been keeping an eye on the weather forecast for the sort of cool, clear, calm nights that I needed. I had already failed twice in so many weeks when there had been too much of a breeze for the mist to form in any meaningful way but this time as I drove across country with patches of mist visible in dips in the landscape, it looked like my early alarm call was going to pay off.

Arriving at the castle with conditions looking perfect, I opted to get some drone shots in the bag before heading down to the mere to walk the dog while getting some ground level images (who said men can’t multi-task?). I have photographed Framlingham Castle many times and while I do like to re-photograph previously successful compositions in different conditions, it is all too easy on these bleary early mornings to turn the brain off and slip into auto pilot so I made a conscious effort to look for fresh angles.

Sometimes these shoots are frantic affairs spent chasing the light in an effort to be as productive as possible but as the sun rose on the longest day of the year and the mist thickened it was so peaceful that I couldn’t help but stop and take it all in. Soaked by the dew laden grass, Millie (my black Labrador) seemed equally content. Granted she is easily pleased but she loves these early mornings when the air is cool, the sniffs are fresh and the fox poo plentiful. Wandering the path around the mere, I managed to create some suitable atmospheric images (and avoid the somewhat feisty cows grazing there) before returning to get a few more aerial shots prior to heading home for breakfast.

Later that evening, driving up to Norwich to judge a panel competition, fuelled by coffee and nerves I was feeling surprisingly alert. I’ll just quickly mention that I am not a camera club judge and have no ambitions in that direction. I have always thought to stand up in front of a room full of photographers and talk intelligently and off-the-cuff about their work for a couple of hours looked incredibly difficult. Turns out I was right but the standard of work was impressive and once I settled to the task I had a great time and as I didn’t get run out of town at the point of a pitch fork I assume it went ok. I did appreciate the opportunity to have a go so thanks to Norwich & District PS for inviting me to give my feedback!

Next up was a 30 minute drive to Happisburgh Lighthouse for some night photography, something else that has been on my list for some time. To be honest I was as keen to try a new (to me) technique as anything else. I have dabbled with what I call landscape astro photography - images that include the night sky but in a wide angle view - for a few years but, with the exception of trips to Iceland for the northern lights, with fairly average results. Surprisingly East Anglia isn’t a particularly dark part of the world and as dark night skies are the real key to successful images I’ve always assumed that this was my issue but there are plenty of places where is it certainly dark enough to get good results so this year I have been making an effort to improve my camera and processing technique.

With good views of it from the north, Happisburgh lighthouse is perfectly located for photographing the Milky Way which is visible in southern skies. Exactly where and how much is visible changes through the year and with other factors to consider like moon phase and rise and set times, it is the type of photography that requires much more planning than the (not inconsiderable) amount usually required for landscape photography. I’m no expert so I won’t bore you with the details but on this occasion I had an hour or so to wait before the sky was suitably dark and then just over an hour in which to get my shots before the rise of the moon started to lighten the sky again.

The image here was the result of multiple images all shot with the same settings and then stacked together to reduce noise. There is always room for improvement but this is a step in the right direction and I was pleased that the technique worked. I enjoy learning new techniques, I think it helps to stop your work stagnating which is just as well because processing night sky images is turning out to be a steep learning curve.

Time flew and before I knew it was after two in the morning and I was packing up. Driving home the tiredness was really starting to hit but as I drove through the Broads National Park, I noticed a thick mist forming and it occurred to me that dawn was only an hour or so away… here we go again! A slight detour would take me past the River Waveney on the way home, an area that I don’t know as well as I would like, something I have been meaning to change.

Meandering through a broad flat valley forming the border between Norfolk and Suffolk, the Waveney has always struck me as being similar to the much more familiar (to me) River Stour which forms the border with Essex in the south. I always suspected that just like the Stour it would be a good place to shoot on a misty morning and now I had a chance to find out.

It is always surprises me how cold it can be early on a summer morning, maybe because I’m dressed for warmer weather at this time of year but on this occasion the fresh chill of the swirling mist was welcome, waking me up as soon as I got out of the car.

I’ll let the photos do the talking (and do let me know in the comments what you think) but at the end of another beautiful sunrise and a third decent session in 24 hours, I packed away exhausted but happy.

I never regret going out at with the camera at sunrise even if things aren’t great I usually come away with something (even if it is just having walked the dog!) and this was certainly worth staying up for but on the drive home I would have happily swapped my camera for a double espresso.