Darkness descends

And makes for very moody (some might say dark and twisted) toggery oportunities...

;-)

So... Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's worth it.

Going out that is.

Despite prevaricating, like it's a fifty-fifty, fifty percent of the time, you should always try and get out at dawn and sunset. Unless conditions outside really do make it impossible to shoot, there's always something to be had in the transition zone between day and night.

West Wittering Sands

Nikon D810, 14-24mm f2.8 Nikkor at 24mm, f11 at 0.8 second

16.32, 26th November 2016

Low light levels give you the opportunity to balance your exposures relatively easily and emerging shapes and forms become the primary subjects of the dark and twisted twilight moments. Gloomy, oblique and softer lighting conditions pick out contours in features like ripples in the sand - and puddles and breaks in cloud cover make for interesting related shapes and tones that retain their detail in a single exposure value.

Sunset was 16.04 in the two images in this blog, both were shot within a few minutes of each other, facing in opposite directions and roughly twenty minutes to half an hour after the official sundown time on the ephemeris app.

West Wittering Sands

Nikon D810, 14-24mm f2.8 Nikkor at 15mm, f11 at 2 seconds

16.23, 26th November 2016

At 180 degrees to the sun it's always easier to acquire balanced exposures; the dynamic range of the scene is compressed and, while contrasts are less pronounced, chances of blowing highlights are minimal. As a general rule, the hues on the opposite horizon to the sunset/sunrise are essentially the same as those facing into the sun, they're just more muted versions.

The moral of this little tale (other than try and get out more) is, as we enter panto season: "look behind you!"