This week has been very busy already. After a 15 hour working day yesterday starting at 0445, I had a lie in today until 0500. For the first time in weeks we had a dramatic drop in temperature forecast with light winds (below 10knots). I was so excited I could hardly get to sleep.

I was on site an hour before civil sunrise to take in the gloaming light. Dawn is a most magical time of day that signifies newness and life despite the fact that it might be shedding light on a somewhat drab environment. It is just magical to see the creeping light from the east spreading North and South on the visible horizon.

I’m always in two minds as to which way to look.

Anyway I needed to get a feel for the view at the right height in the dark before plonking the large format camera on the tripod and this is where the beauty of digital photography comes in. I opted for 30 second exposures to capture the movement in the vapour trails belching forth from various vents  in the maltings. These vapour trails always caught my eye during my days of commuting at ridiculous hours and I always wanted to try and capture something about the plant that never seems to stop.

Sheets and rolls of film eventually got exposed but I rather like the movement in these images.

One thing I have noticed in these longish exposures is the reflected structure of the railway bridge behind the camera bouncing off the plume spreading over the railway line. A ghostly structure that had me wondering what was going on for a few minutes.

The last image is 100 minutes after sunrise.

Condensation on the ground glass and the front element of the lens brought the large format session to a premature end. It was then that I noticed frost forming on the tripod legs. A tad cold but hugely satisfying to have managed to get some large and medium format film exposed.

Now the for the hard part. I’m going to have to try and find a decent lab to process these as I hear that my normal lab has folded. So sad to see people who are good at their jobs losing their way of life and income.