The alarm went off at 3:20am, and 12 minutes later I was on my bike heading towards Bushy Park, one of the Royal Parks, to see what sunrise would bring. As it was Clean Air Day, I decided that I would use zero emissions transport, which meant it took me around 50 minutes to get there, hence the early start, to be in time for sunrise.
I mostly followed the route of the River Thames, from Weybridge to Hampton Court Palace, and one of the things I noticed was there are a lot of flies and midges around at that time of the morning! With it being dark, it wasn’t easy to see them, so my breathing was in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Only one got through!
When I entered the park I saw a beautiful low lying mist and, as I gravitated towards It, it got noticeably colder, and I wondered if shorts were the appropriate choice.
It is birthing season for deer, so there were plenty of deer around the park, so I had to be careful not to disturb them. They soon seemed to get used to this odd person wandering around on their own at 4:30 am!
Once the sun had come up, and the golden hour passed, I got sucked into photographing these beautiful creatures.
As is often the case I was drawn to photographing trees in the mist. The one below is probably my favourite of the ones I took, although the same tree (below that), a few minutes earlier, may have been a very close second.
The one small thing I would change about this one is to have a gap between the right hand edge of the second gate, and the tree trunk. Unfortunately, the sun was moving towards the right of the frame, so I wouldn’t have been able to keep it behind the tree, and would have some massive highlight from the centre of the sun, coming through the branches, which would have completely ruined the shot.
These moments are rare and fleeting, so speed is of the essence.
As the sun was coming up I saw this deer grazing in the grass, with birds perched on its back. The deer seemed unperturbed by the birds and carried on grazing. It was only later on that I realised that the birds were eating things off the deer’s back, presumably bugs and insects that were in its fur.
Although I live within the M25 (just), and Bushy Park is even closer to London, it was still wonderful to experience nature at first hand, and to breath in the fresh, cool air of an early June morning.
Cycling home on Clean Air Day, I had a lovely, warm feeling (smug if you like) about having contributed zero emissions during this photoshoot. When I am working I will always aim to make my photoshoots as sustainable as possible, although it’s rare to be able to get there on my bike. It’s certainly something I will look at more, for personal photoshoots.
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And, because I got sucked into it, here are some more deer (including one with a crow on it’s head)…
:DK
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