ONE SHOT

One Shot

Throughout my day with Bernard he mentioned over and over about a location he was excited to share with me, It was less than 20 minutes from his house and was one that he had photographed many times before. The scene would need light for it to lift plus the light would need to be at least 1 hour before sunset as the adjacent hills would swallow up the light before the colour would arrive. As we made our way back along the road we decided that with the thickening clouds and the periodic gaps in them, we should take the chance to visit in the hope that all the stars would align as such.

The location was like an idyllic postcard to be fair, with two trees sitting on a hillside, old original Connemara stone walls crisscrossing the undulations of the hills below them and all surrounded by a magnificent lake, upon arrival, I knew just why Bernard liked it so much. The area was also home to a hundred or so sheep, who were on hand to greet us upon our arrival. The sounds of the ewes and their lambs were very nice to hear, it was like they were either welcoming Bernard back or were telling us to stay out as they made quite the racket and all lined up on the hillside above us. I also knew right then that they would feature in some shots, due to the amount of them and their placements all around us.

It was then that Bernard surprised me by asking for my mic to do the intro to the video, He felt that because I wasn’t there before and he was, plus he knew the exact time to arrive and the best conditions to shoot, he was more qualified to make the introductions than me. He was right of course so I didn’t object, plus it was nice to have someone else to do the talking to camera instead of me for a change. However, when he introduced the video in my trademark fashion “ Welcome back to the Channel, welcome back to the vlog” I felt perhaps he wanted to totally take over :-)

Today’s shoot was going to be different, it was to be a shoot of just one shot, a shot of the two trees with their stone walls pointing up the hill towards them, basking in the warm glow of the light. I had seen Bernard's shots of the scene before and agreed that it needed light as he mentioned, so all we had to do was set up our compositions and wait. We won’t have to wait for long I thought, as judging by the fleeting light we had encountered many times during the same day.

I couldn’t have been more wrong, however, as the cloud came in and it seemed like it wanted to apply for residency it was reluctant to move just one inch it seemed. We waited and waited and then we waited some more and even though we had some false hopes of a breakthrough, it seemed like it would not materialise. I took a shot of the passing fake light as I didn’t want to wait to see if we got the real light, and whilst this light was nice, it was too far over in the fields to make an impact on the trees as we had wanted it to, but I was glad I did as in landscape photography you take what you have while you can, don’t wait for the best light to come as it may never materialise.

My drone had already played a part in the day, so I sent it up for another flight, I wanted to explore the area from different angles but didn’t want to abandon my comp in case the light would arrive and I would miss it. The views the drone was able to give were nice, but to be fair to Bernard the composition we had was the strongest, I guess he had tried many before now so I best take his experience on board and be ready.

After what seemed like an eternity of us looking longingly at the clouds as they seemed to stand still, they started to take on a warm glow. The sun was entering its setting phase which meant that out would soon dip below the hills and our chance of direct light would be gone, however just as we thought all was lost, it broke through, long enough for us to hit the shutter and capture the moment and then just like that it was gone again. I had a shot, not the greatest shot, but a shot nonetheless and I could see looking at the back of the camera the difference it made to the overall scene. One shot seemed to be the way to go for this shoot for sure and I was happy to have a version of it at least.

Bernard has shared two shots with me to show you how the scene lifts when the light arrives that he had taken before and I will share them in the gallery below, as well as two of my own