Look Behind You!!

As I was driving to work this morning, I could just see the Malvern Hills in the distance, with a sort of subtle pinky glow as the sun was rising. Last year, I would have just though 'That's nice' and carried on, but I stopped in a layby, got the camera and tripod out, fiddled about, got cold, captured nothing of any interest, and then turned round...

After crossing the main road and sliding down an icy bank, I only had time for a couple of shots before the sun was too high and bright. I cursed away because a certain well known maker of filters are having difficulties with supply (again) and I haven't got a filter ring for the new lens so I couldn't use my grads, and I'd forgotten that in the olden days I just had to underexpose and hope for the best. It all came back to me in a rush, and this is what I ended up with (after a bit of pp in LR to add a grad and bump up the exposure in the rest of the picture a bit).

It just goes to show - a good friend is always telling me to look behind me when I'm photographing, and he was right again. I won't name names, because he'll just become insufferable... :-)