Bingo! The Met Office predicts to clear nights in a row (yesternight and tonight). It's surprisingly spooky being alone on a nature reserve in the dark. The moon was out, which was a big help for illuminating the landscape and giving me more light for shorter exposures. And then we come to the weather. It was cold even for Cornwall. When I set up on the first night I put my camera bag down and a lens beanbag attached to it fell in a puddle. I pulled it out, not too worried about it, and a few minutes later the side submerged in the water had frozen solid. Similarly the toes of my wellies which had water on froze too.
The first night of shooting was probably the most successful but was cut short. I had just moved to a new location and had taken some shots when what sounded like a tree falling down resounded from a patch of woodland nearby. I turned to look thinking *nothing to be scared of, trees have to fall down some time* and then a light started flashing from the trees location. Who cuts down tree at 10 o'clock at night?? Anyway, that was more than my already heightened senses could take. I quickly, and rather silently, packed away my cameras - that's right, two camera's means twice as many shots and less waiting around doing nothing during long exposures - and vacated the area.
The second night was very slightly hazy and completely uneventful.
Shots from the first night:
The big pile of bricks/ruined building in the second and fourth photo is all that remains of the 'stack' that was once twice the size and used for the refining of arsenic pre-1939. It got damaged when someone removed the lighting conductor off the top and - you guessed it - it got hit by lighting, throwing bricks hundreds of metres every which way.
Shots from the second night:
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these are beautiful James!
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