Before, during and after...

26/01/10

Before...

...the sun peeked over the horizon I had gingerly driven up the road that leads to the top of Culver Cliff; a short, steep track which offers amazing views over Brading, Sandown and Bembridge at any time, let alone during this years snow. The car made it up without a hitch, but as soon as I stepped out I was straight over! Thankfully I hadn't unpacked the camera yet...

As you can see, in the pre-dawn light everything was a cool chilly blue, the snow being a perfect reflector for the blue sky. The colour temperature of this scene was around 9500 kelvin as recorded by the auto white balance of the camera (the higher the number the bluer the colour, somewhat counter-intuitively!) This blue cast can be "printed out", making the scene appear neutral, but this would give a false impression and not be as it appeared at the time.

During...

...the sunrise the colour temperature warms up dramatically - it is now around 6500 kelvin (this is still quite cold though - a normal sunrise/sunset will record at 2-3000 kelvin, a candle at 1500-2000 kelvin. The lower the number the warmer the light. This relative coolness is being caused by the snow and clear blue sky.) and the low angle of the sun is catching the clouds and lighting them up pink.

After...

...the sun has been up for 10 minutes the colour temperature has dropped a little more to 6000 kelvin, but the contrast has gone through the roof and the clouds have lost their pinky tinge. Less than 40 minutes elapsed between these three pictures - it just goes to show how quickly and dramatically the colour of light can change.