Last Saturday evening, the weather looked good and promised a sunset. Rather than head to my usual locations, I visited Carl Wark in the Peak District.
I hadn’t been to Carl Wark in the evening for perhaps a couple of years. It’s a great location with many unusual, weathered rocks and a lot of heather. I thought this would be ideal as the heather is now coming into peak flower.
After parking and walking over Higger Tor, I was surprised that more people weren’t out. Usually, on a summer evening, you can hardly move on Higger Tor these days, but there were only a couple of people. I think the nice weather and the fact that it was a weekend kept everyone in the pub.
When I got to Carl Wark, there were only three other people. Two were photographers, and the other looked like a long-suffering girlfriend (or wife). They had set up in positions I had shot from before, and I was keen to try different compositions, so we didn’t have any “territorial disputes”.
Initially, I shot a few frames using a 14mm prime lens on my Fuji while waiting for the light to improve. These came to nothing but were a way of passing time and encouraging me to move around. Then, as the sun got low in the sky, the light turned magical, and I began finding new compositions among the shadows.
Here’s one that I shot near the peak of the sunset light.
This was captured using the Fuji XT5 and a Fuji 10-24 lens at 12mm. The exposure is 1/3 second at f/8.0 and ISO125 and I used a 3-stop Reverse ND Grad filter on the sky. I’m not yet entirely happy with my processing but will come back to it in the future.
The next shot was probably only a few minutes later and may have been the most intense light of the evening.
This is also shot with the Fuji XT5 and a Fuji 10-24 lens at 12mm. The exposure was 0.8 seconds at f/8.0 and ISO125.
The light from my right side was now so intense that it produced a huge amount of contrast, making it difficult to see. As I moved around, I struggled a lot to find compositions. Then, as the sun dropped below the horizon, the contrast levels fell, making it easier to see and compose.
Shortly after the sun dipped below the horizon, I captured this image using the Fuji XT5 and 10-24 lens at 10mm. The exposure was 1.3 seconds at f/8.0 and ISO125.
With the sun now fading, I made my way over to the path from Carl Wark to Higger Tor to shoot a few final images.
This was shot with the XT5 and 10-24 lens at 12mm. It’s a 0.9-second exposure at f/8.0 and ISO125.
I liked a few other shots from the evening, but this small selection shows how the light progressed. I hope you enjoy them and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 