I lived at the foot of the Dublin Mountains for 3 and a half years, and I can count on one hand the number of times I actually went up the mountains with my camera. In fact, I can count the number of times on one finger. That one time I did bring the camera up the mountain, back in February 2007, was a wonderfully clear spring day. And as the sun set in the west, I captured this photograph.
Earlier in the day I had paid a visit to Dun Laoghaire, which is always good for a photo or two. Indeed that day I did grab a shot which became another of my computer wallpapers for a few months – I hope to post a series of Dun Laoghaire shots in the future and will remember to include that shot. One of the problems with Dun Laoghaire (photographically that is) is that, being on the east coast, somewhat in the shadow of the Dublin Mountains, towards the latter part of the day the harbour is cast into shadow long before the sun has dipped below the horizon. I imagine the best photographs of Dun Laoghaire are taken at dawn, with the sun rising in the east, but I’ve never been over there early enough. Some day.
Anyway, back to the Dublin Mountains. With the available light diminishing in Dun Laoghaire, I literally headed for the hills, hoping to catch that sun before it dipped below the western peaks. As I drove up I spotted this tree from the road, not far from Johnny Fox’s pub. I liked the shadow that was being cast by the setting sun behind it, although shooting into the sun wasn’t going to be easy.
In fact, looking back now, I think I probably photographed this scene about 10 minutes too early. If I was to go back I might now wait for the sun to dip below the peak of the mountain, but try to keep the feel of the sunset without the overexposed sun actually in the frame.
For this shot I had the aperture stopped right down to f/22, meaning that shutter only opened a sliver. Unlike yesterday’s shot however, with all that backlight in this shot I didn’t also need a long exposure – in fact it was a relatively fast 1/640s. Again here I opted to shoot in portrait format, and again I’m not entirely sure why – it’s just how I tend to pre-visualize these type of scenes. With all that light stressing the capabilities of the D50, I had to do quite a bit of post processing to get this end result, using Apple’s wonderful Aperture 2.0 software to retouch some lens flare from the sun, tweak the white balance, recover some of the blown highlights, and bring back some detail in the shadows.
I’d like to reshoot this photograph at some stage with my Nikon D300, perhaps with a cloud or two in the sky, and with the sun just below the horizon. I suspect it would result in a stronger image.
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