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Touch the Fire

Posted by
Darkelf Photography (Perth, Australia) on 29 August 2023 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

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Lone sentinel watches a late display of magical sunset colour over the rural areas near Mansfield in Victoria, Australia. An unexpected opportunity manifested itself to take the kind of photo which I wanted to take for a long time - silhouetted bare tree stretching out against a fiery sky. A kind of quintessential outback scene for me. When I think of outback and sunset this is exactly what comes to my mind.

Today's image is a continuation of a fantastic display of sunset light and colours which I already presented in the Golden Dreams photo. The amazing light really lingered on for a long time on that day. I took this photo around thirty minutes after the previous one, when we were about to leave the nature reserve to head to our accommodation. As we were driving by, I spotted this tree sitting beautifully on its own in the middle of the field. I have kind of pre-imagined or pre-visualised this moment in my mind on many an occasion so a tiny alert went on inside my head.

At first I only had a fleeting thought of stopping but then I noticed that there was still colour remaining in the sky. We did stop and I ran out to take a couple of photos. I was already packed up and my tripod was hidden away. My camera was with me though, as I always keep it next to me in the car just in case we encounter moments like that. Despite the brightness of the sky behind the tree, it was actually rather dark by then and I had to push the ISO a bit higher while also using the widest aperture possible. I still ended up needing to take a hand-held image at 0.6 sec and fortunately my hands proves just steady enough to achieve it.

The light was fading out quickly by then and I only had a few moments to find a decent composition but fortunately this spot was just what I was looking for. The lone barren tree was separated enough from any other shrubs and trees and it reached out beautifully to touch the fiery remains of the sunset. In addition, the branches did not touch anything else in the scene and that was critical to my vision as well. I knew I was going for a silhouetted effect but I did not want for the tree to be completely black and I wanted at least a hint of texture in the foreground. That is why I did not push the ISO higher to achieve lower shutter speed. I was aware that I was going to have to dig out detail from deep shadows and minimising noise was on the back of my mind. I also used additional software at home to deal with noise in the raw file which made achieving the final result much more of a possibility.

It is amazing how the scene and perspective can change depending on the vantage point and location. The photo with golden colours and wide perspective over the fields was taken from the top of the hill overlooking the area. When the colour faded out to be almost insignificant from that point of view, I packed up and made my way down to where we parked out car. We then drove further down the hill towards the exit and this is where I spotted this scene. The colours really popped out at me again and being able to focus on a specific section of the sky brought them back into play and I was able to take the photo you can see here.

This was an unplanned photo but one that I have been chasing for a long time. It is not even that great technically but that is not overly critical to me in this instance. I feel that I got the mood and the moment just as I always envisaged. Yes, it would have been great to go with ISO 100 and maybe even restore slightly more detail in the foreground, however, I think the essence of what I wanted to photograph is present here and that is a lot more important to me.

Canon EOS R5 3/5 seconds F/4.0 ISO 1600 35 mm

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