Welcome to a New Day

You'd have laughed.  There I was working on the computer when I got the slightest hint of light outside. From my vantage point it looked resolutely grey but craning my neck I could see clear sky to the east.  Experience told me it might be an interesting sunrise.  

But where to go, it was less than 15 minutes to sunrise and often the peak colours occurred before that time?  I grabbed a memory card and headed to the car, almost being blown over by a gust of wind as I opened the front door.  I opted for a lane that runs down to a local farm.  All of the time the colours were improving but at the same time the clouds were covering over the clear sky.  Thankfully I made it and was able to set up the camera on a tripod, add a filter and compose just in time.  I even had to smile at the serendipity of the farm gate being opened (It normally isn't!).  Within minutes of the shot the sun light was extinguished and rain had started to fall.  It's true what they say that the best light is often on the margins of the weather.

Technical: A challenging scene, there is a Lee reverse grad 0.9 filter on the front of the lens to control the sky's exposure.  I also bracketed exposures to cope with the scene.  Back on the computer I combined images in Lightroom photo merge (HDR), added a gradient filter to lighten shadows in the area above the horizon (affected by the filtration).  A slight crop and exported.