Daffodils at morning twilight

There's many great things about long exposure photography: the tranquility of the darkness, the ability to get the image looking just-right in camera. And the opportunity to stamp fresh ideas onto a much photographed scene.

It was with that last point especially in mind that yesterday morning I crept out of the house at about 04:20 to put a new take on a typical springtime scene. Driving to the location - the village church of All Saints in East Meon - I was wondering if I'd left early enough as I could see the first signs of twilight growing in the east. Not good: where evening twilight gradually gives way to night, to me morning always seems to arrive with a bang. The image I had in mind would need me to add my own lighting into the scene and that necessitates a 20sec exposure, maybe longer, which begins to be quite a struggle as the day brightens.

Turns out I needn't have worried and I arrived with time to setup and capture just what I was looking for. The church silhouetted in the background (if you look closely the clock reads 05:16) and the early-morning blueness of the sky just cracking into daylight to the east, offset by the vivid bank of daffodils and their beautiful springtime colours.

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