Sunrise Through The Misty Trees

Wake Up

So my body clock is pretty reliable, for years I’ve had to leave the house at 6am to get to work on time, so even without an alarm clock, I tend to wake up around 5:20ish, even back when I was a teenager, I always went to sleep at a consistent time and wake up early, it’s a blessing and a curse, no matter how late I get to sleep, that’s always the time I wake up, unconsciously I don’t allow myself to have a lay in on the weekends, I wonder what it’s like to have the ability to sleep past 7am.. 

The weather hadn’t been looking too great for the week, cloudy, England, go figure, but not really rainy, not yet at least, throughout the week on my morning drives to work, I noticed that there’s patches of surface level fog, I really like the aesthetic of fog, it gives a little eerie feeling to the scene.

I woke up on the Saturday morning, bright and early, wait, bright?

Well, brightish, the sun hadn’t rose just yet but you can tell there’s hardly any clouds in the sky, I didn’t originally plan on going out, but I always have some batteries ready for my camera and drone, and I thought to myself, screw it, I want to go, it’s what I feel like I’m drawn to do today, if I go lay down in going to regret not taking this chance.

You can tell the heat of the summer has gone, the air is getting quite crisp, so for the first time in months I threw on a hoody, then I packed my camera, my drone and another lens, I let my fiancée know I was going out, got my shoes on and I left the house, I live one side of the town, so I got in my car and I drove to a little parking area close to where the fields are, and where you could see the rooftops of the entire town as the sun raises, as you’ll see soon.

Taking Flight And Feeling Grounded

Fresh air, misty meadows, birds chirping, that was the scene that was engulfing me as I walked across the fields to the location I wanted to get to.

The spot was a break in the tree line that wrapped around a field, there’s an old war pill box near there too, I didn’t go there this time, perhaps next time I’ll try to get a mist shot with that in it. 

I put my bag on the floor and I took out my drone, a DJI Mini 4 Pro, affectionally called Flick, started it up and took flight. The sun was only just above the horizon for the moment, so pretty low and pretty dark still, I flew Flick around a little, getting some clips, during this time an older man and his dog, a border collie, walked by, he asked me what I was looking for, I said I was just taking photos of the town, that I have only been here for a handful of months and everything still feels new to me, he explained that he had been living here for most of his life, I mentioned that next time, I’ll have my dogs with me, they’ll love it here and to meeting his dog.

Side note here: he mentioned how his dog was his life saver, that his wife passed away 3 years ago due to cancer, he originally didn’t want another dog as he had lost one shortly before getting his new one, everything was too soon and raw, but his wife convinced him, I could tell how much his dog means to him, being the closest companion he has now, he continued his walk and said to meet there again in the future with both our dogs, sometimes it’s a random talk with a person you’ve never met before, that can make you feel all the more grateful for the time you have.

After a moment, I turned back to Flick, who was still hovering around in the sky, the sun has risen more now, there’s a church in the centre of the town, so I centred the church, composing the photo with the sun glowing at the tip of the cross that’s situated on the roof.



I had my camera with my 100-400mm lens on, so I also snapped this shot from the ground, which I thought looked nice, having a silhouette of the church in the foreground.



I then decided to get a HDR shot of the town with the sun glowing, but keeping the detail of the sky, that’s done by composing the image out of two photos, I get Flick into position and then I take a longer exposed photo of the town, switch the settings to a faster shutter speed to bring out the details of the sky and take another shot, then combine them in photoshop to create the final photo, I’ll post the image below.

Misty Meadows

Just behind the split in the trees, there was a lot of mist, I decided to take my bag and walk through it, I was so shocked when I turned back around to see a beautiful sight of the suns rays gleaming through the trees and highlighting the mist, I spent a very long time in this location and got what is probably one of my favourite shots I’ve taken so far.



I could try to describe it but honestly, it’ll be best to show you so I’ll post that below.

Now I don’t mean to gloat, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the good shots, this was a good shot that I was happy to get, it energised me to continue the morning, getting more shots at different angles and settings.

After a short time, a lady walked by with her two dogs, she said “sorry I’m going to ruin your photo” to which I replied, “not ruin it, but you can make it!” and I took a photo as they’re entering the mist, walking away from the camera, as if they’re entering another world entirely, the photo below.



I was content with my shots so far and thought I’d be happy if I just had this for my morning session, but I stayed out a little while longer to get a few extra shots, there wasn’t much more to the morning, after a little while longer I walked back to my car and drove home to have some coffee and to start my day again.