Planning For Sunsets

Planning For Sunsets

 

I have been a Fiordland fanatic for more than 30 years and have scoured the fiords searching for photographic opportunities.

In the early days I begged myself onto deer recovery helicopter flights to scout for photo locations. One that I found was from the summit of Mount Pender overlooking the entrance to Dusky Sound. 

To make this work for me I needed to have the sun setting exactly over the entrance, so when I returned home I studied my Fiordland map and calculated with the aid of a GPS, the exact time of the year when the sun was where I wanted it at sunset.

This calculation told me that I needed to be there in the second week of January (I can't remember exactly but you get the point) so I planned a one week camping trip  at that time.

Well, to cut a long story short, due to bad weather I did not get my photo so had to wait a year to return. The bad weather taught me that I could not afford to camp on the exposed mountain again as I had my tent fly torn to shreds by the gale force winds on that first trip. Being older and wiser, I camped about half an hours walk down the mountain.

The weather was still volatile, but one night things fell into place for me. It had been raining and I had abandoned any hope of getting my photo and was trudging back to my tent.  Without warning the rain stopped and the mist began to clear as I raced back up the hill and with bumbling hands set up the tripod, clamped the camera on top and took this photo just as the last of the mist cleared. I was over the moon, all that planning over a couple of years came to a climax for just 5 minutes at exactly the right time.