Wait for the light

Nick Jenkins is a photographer who is associated with both the Royal Photographic Society and the Welsh Photographic Federation. He specialises in taking pictures of British landscapes and he also works for Light & Land Photographic Holidays. You can visit Free Spirit Images for more information.

Here's his tip:

"I was photographing in Shropshire recently and decided to pay a visit to the wonderfully named Moreton Corbet Castle near Wem. I found the castle and remains of the Old Hall and set up the camera, concentrating on the Hall. The light was less than inspiring but I had a reasonable viewpoint and fired off a few frames.

Glancing over my shoulder I noticed that there was a bit of a break in the clouds, which I estimated was going to take about twenty minutes to reach me. I was very close to packing up and thinking I would pop back another day, when sanity hit me. I live in Cardiff - when was I going to pop back! So, I waited... and waited. Finally, after about thirty five minutes the patch of blue sky arrived and the land was flooded with a low and very rich light.   

The difference, to me, between the two pictures could not have been more marked! Had I seen this taken by someone else I would have been absolutely mortified. It does pay to slow down, look around and, if necessary, just wait for that light. Isn't that what photography is all about after all?"

(for info. shot on a Nikon D300 using a Sigma 24-70 f2.8 lens and a Hoya circular polarising filter, on a Uniloc tripod. Aperture f18 at 1/13th  second for both shots at 200 ISO.) 

The first shot.	The shot after I waited for the light.