There's always a moment, when the alarm goes off at 2.30am or 5am that I think to myself "what am I doing?!".. This morning was no different, the forecast last night was looking OK, and after missing last nights sunset I thought there might be a back-to-back set&rise - being woken up at 5am by the alarm my first check was the forecast, which looked a bit too clear, but given I was already awake at this point I thought I'd head out anyway...I'm glad I did!This is the first time I've ever seen (never mind photographed) a light pillar/solar pillar - until a few months ago I didn't even know that such a thing existed!
Having failed to get the shot I was after at this location last week, I headed back last night to try again. It didn't look all that promising at first, as a bank of cloud was hogging the horizon, and about 40 mins before sunset the sun all but disappeared - but perseverance won out.. I watched as the clouds over me slowly built with colour just before sunset, the orange/pink glow growing like the clouds were absorbing the colour - a truly remarkable sight to watch!I wanted to capture a bit of movement in the water - so made this image from 9 individual shots taken vertically - each one at 15 seconds, and then stitched together to form a wide panorama capturing all of the bridge (and it's arches!).