It looked like this morning might be the last likely opportunity for a while with some bad weather moving in for the next few days, so with a chance of some broken cloud and showers, I set my alarm for potentially doing an early start up Coniston Old Man. It's one of the locations I have in mind for this time of year, and I'm keeping an eye out for the ideal morning. After waking up and checking WetterOnline Radar though, that idea was put into doubt as there looked to be heavier raincloud drifting across more the southern Lakes, and I wasn't too sure whether the fairly high summit of Coniston would just be shrouded in it.
I had a think about a potential plan B, and decided Black Fell would be worth a shout - it's the right time of year for the first light to hit the stone wall and windswept trees on the summit near the trig point, and it'd also be sufficiently facing opposite the sunrise to make the most of any rainbow that might happen if that incoming shower did partly pass by.
First impressions on the drive over and the walk up were hopeful, with some fairly clear sky to the South-East, but some moody cloud to the North and West. I carried on, and waited the remaining 15 mins or so till sunrise at the location. It's frustrating when you have a perfect gap in the sky that starts to get smaller and smaller as sunrise approaches - there was now a gap about the size of the sun, so I knew any opportunity would be pretty brief. Started getting a bit excited when I felt a rain shower spitting raindrops over me, with a squall in the distance by the Langdales, and as the sun finally started to pierce through that limited gap I was really hoping for at least a partial rainbow!
Sadly no joy, and so I took the shot regardless before the best of the strong light waned.
I quite like the end result of this one, but can just imagine a rainbow in the mid distance on the left side just giving it that extra impact. The light caught the trees and the stone well, and the low cloud in the distance was just high enough to give a clear view of the distant snow-capped fells, including the Langdales, with evidence of that shower still lingering.
As it seemed clear I wasn't going to get a rainbow, I decided to quickly hop over the stile and see if I could frame a view looking the other way towards the dramatic sunlight before the cloud swallowed it up.
I didn't expect this one to end up making it to an edit, and it was a pretty tricky edit as well, with an awkward flare that was a bit of a mission to remove. A combination of feathered lasso selections plus Replace Colour, and Levels adjustments banished it well enough in the end.
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