On two consecutive nights there were sub-zero temperatures (about -6°), coupled with dense fog. The result was on the first morning already a foggy heath landscape with many ice structures, in which I could photograph my favorite trees.
On the second day I went there again with Christina. This night, according to the weather forecast, the fog lasted the whole time, so for a total of about 33 hours as I calculated later. Just at sunrise of the second day clouds and fog slowly moved aside. The sight was really fantastic:
It was totally bright, already very early in the blue hour. There was hardly any contrast between the sky and the landscape. Of course, I know this effect from snow landscapes; although I have often photographed a bright snow cover in heath areas, for example in the High Fens Belgium- but a completely frozen landscape, in which all details (e.g. filigree grasses) are preserved in contrast to a closed snow cover, I have never seen like this and it looks really fascinating.
Especially in my memory is the colour of the Scots pines. These trees are usually very dominant photographically because the green is extremely dark, so they are actually not one of my favorite trees. But on this day they were totally bright and showed a super nice shade of green.
You won't see any classic sunrise colors in this series by the way, that had an optical reason. The sun showed up every now and then between the last wisps of fog in the southeastern sky, even at dawn, and coloured the sky orange. Normally I point my camera for these first minutes after sunrise always toward the sun. I did that for a short time, but the result was an orange sky and very dark branches in the backlight, especially with the free-standing birch trees with the sun in the background. My thought was then, such shots I can actually make all year round with a little morning frost. However, I would not have been able to convey the extreme brightness in the backlight. Here I had the opportunity to create pastel images, because the light was still very soft even 45 minutes after sunrise. So I photographed on this day untypically with the sun in my back to emphasize the bright character of the landscape.
I wish you now a lot of fun with this series and continue a good start to the New Year 🖐
I hope you enjoyed the series!