It’s not often that a photo makes you say “WOW” out loud in a very uncool 80’s kind of way, and especially not a photo that you took yourself. This is one of the very few photos that I’ve taken recently that has had that effect on me.

And, as with a lot of pleasing images, it nearly didn’t happen at all. I had a spare hour after work to drive to Ashridge Country Park, near Hemel Hempstead, to try and catch the sunset. I’ve been there a few times before, but I’m still not certin where the best vantage point is. I was literally running around, tripod and camera over one shoulder, trying to find a good view as the sun slipped ever closer to the horizon.

In the end I plonked down the tripod and used my 75-200mm zoom lens to isolate the sun and the dead tree, cutting out a lot of irritating foreground clutter. At the time I didn’t think the photo would be anything special. Now I don’t think it’s such a bad effort after all :-)

Ashridge Sunset