A view to behold.

Joseph/ March 5, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 5 comments

Firstly, I have to apologize for the length of this post. I usually try to keep them short, but this time round I’m too excited, I have to admit. Today was a cold but sunny day. That’s pretty much how any person would have described it. But for someone who continuously lives with the nagging thought that somewhere there is something waiting to be photographed, such a description does not do justice to such a precious day. Today was a day with beautiful, pristine Winter light! I’ve waited to get this shot ever since I moved to Oxford. Of course I’ve taken pictures of the same staircase countless times before. But I’ve always known what was missing. The shot I had in mind just happened to be an incredibly difficult one to capture because many conditions had to be met simultaneously. Firstly, I had to be there at the right time of day when the sun was in the right place shining through those windows. Secondly, I needed just the thinnest of fogs for the light rays to be visible; too dense fog or too cloudy skies would have resulted in feeble rays which would have required too much deliberate overexposure, which in turn would have compromised the overall exposure. Thirdly, both of these conditions had to be met at the right time of year when the sun was right where I wanted it to be in order to be able to compose the photo the way I wanted to. Finally, our college being the tourist attraction that it is, it was going to be hard to get a picture that was not overcrowded with super excited visitors from every corner of the globe running all over the place. So at the back of my mind laid the question of whether I was ever going to be lucky enough. But today, after 17 months of waiting and hoping, it happened. And guess what? I nearly missed it! I was just going out of hall after lunch when I reminded myself that earlier I had noticed a very thin fog. I moved around and ran up and down the stairs a couple of times – and there they were! Faint light rays coming through the huge windows – subdued and visible only from a narrow angle. And blimey – it was the angle I wanted! I quickly moved in position such that I half-covered the sun with the wall to add a flare, fired off a few frames to make sure the rays were there and then asked the porter who was on duty whether he would mind if he were visible in the picture. The last thing I wanted was to happen to have someone in the picture who did not want to be in the frame. He didn’t mind as long as I weren’t going to ask him to pose for the picture, perhaps even looking at the camera – something I definitely did not want! Goodness me, this was perfect! He looked out of the window as he said to me “Hmm, I realized you were trying to make the most of the light today” whilst I quickly released the shutter button in aperture mode with some deliberate overexposure. As I did so, I heard the shutter click reassuringly at what seemed to be the right amount of speed. Hands nearly shaking, I looked at the the camera screen – and my heart was filled with joy. And that’s the story of how the picture I’ve been waiting to take for so long came to be. Light rays, stairs, porter and lamps, all correctly exposed in just one frame without needing to resort to High Dynamic Range imaging. That surely set my mood for the day – and most certainly for the rest of the weekend, at the very least. I surely hope that you like it as much as I do.