This work day started like so many; an early alarm clock, feeling like it would be good to have more sleep and at the usual time wrapping up warm to take Willow out.
Always keeping tabs on the weather forecast, I knew it was going to be cold with a hard frost and probable clear skies, so left the house this morning once again laden with camera and tripod and an expectation of a good sunrise.
As I drove past Jubilee River, around fifty minutes before sunrise, the reflection and colours warranted pulling in to park and walk back to capture the moment! This shot below is a panoramic from two photos.
On mornings like this, it is tempting to forget the primary reason I'm there, which is to exercise and train Willow, so we headed to our regular field to get her stretching her legs and do some training. This is Willow while she was told to do a 'Sit, Stay' - for the purpose of the photo this time! Not many months ago, this wouldn't have been possible - progress at last.
We then headed off to where I wanted to get the next set of photos. This one below was created from six separate frames, three across and two high. I wanted to get a different perspective with the castle than taking a single wide angle shot where the castle would have seemed smaller.
Soon the sun broke the horizon.
One of the challenges when taking photos of the same location is trying to avoid repetitiveness. On this next shot I had an idea to wait for the sun to reach the top of the main body of the tree, resulting in shadows being cast onto the foreground, and the castle in the background shrouded in the mist and haze from the cold temperatures.
By this point the clock was ticking, and I was very conscious of needing to head back to get ready for work.
As I walked back to the car, Willow having been extremely well behaved and patient, I was struck by the atmosphere of the rising mist in this corner of Dorney Common which made a fitting completion to the a beautiful start to this working day.
