The goal today was to capture some shots of Red Deer, so I set off just before dawn and arrived at my moorland location just as the sun was rising.
It was a beautiful start to the morning and I was treated to the rather pleasant scene of the sun rising from behind the hills where a light mist was rolling in...
All the signs were that this was going to be a nice morning of photography and all I had to do was locate the Red Deer!
As I scoured the landscape for the Deer, it became apparent that the mist that was rolling down from the hills was getting a lot denser and the early promise of good light was evaporating quickly...
By this time, the mist could no longer be called mist as it had become thick fog and visibility was down to only a few yards.
There wasn't going to be much chance of photographing Deer in these conditions, I thought to myself...It would be impossible to even spot them, let alone get pictures of them!
I was at this point ready to call it a day, but the visibility was so bad, it would have been treacherous to attempt to walk back through the fog over the moors, so I decided to sit it out until the light got better.
Eventually, the sun made an effort to break through the fog..
One thing to remember about the moors, is weather conditions can change in minutes and a short time later the sun had won it's battle and the fog had reverted back to a rolling mist.
Looking into the direction of the sun there was a wonderful golden misty glow and I surveyed the landscape through my lens hoping to pick up some sort of focal point so to capture the atmospheric scene.
I could hardly believe my luck when I spotted up on a hill, through the dreamy golden hew, three Red Deer Stags perfectly silhouetted...
It was the kind of shot that I'm always on the lookout for and I often find that shooting into the sun can provide some stunning effects.
I've been successful using this technique with a number of species before, but never with Deer.
All in all a pretty decent mornings work despite at times feeling that it was going to be fruitless.
