We have been getting a few misty autumn mornings. The first few mornings I had just watched the mist develop with the growing light and then fade as the sun burnt it off - initially tempted to grab the camera gear and head off for an early morning shoot, but with not enough resolve to finally head out. On the fourth morning I finally succumbed. I had to drop my son at school, but after that had an hour or two free – or so I thought. So we left early and after leaving my son at school, I headed towards the Hale, a fairly local rural location, that I hadn’t tried before, but had on my list to visit when I got the chance. After driving up a perilously narrow lane, I eventually found a wide verge where I could leave the car and wander.

The light was still good – distant hanging mist and warm colours. I found my way to a natural vantage point, from where several photographic possibilities were evident. I set up and started taking a few shots. My first disappointment was discovering that I had left one of my Lee filter adaptor rings in my travel bag. I am due shortly to take a trip to Montana and had started to put together some of my gear into my Peli hard case, which I use for airline travel. I don’t check my camera gear as hold baggage but since 9/11 I equally don’t like to risk the possibility of having to check in a camera rucksack. A rucksack style bag wouldn’t travel well in an aircraft hold and isn't secure so the hard shell Peli is the only way to go - just in case!. The rucksack style camera bag gets packed in the suitcase and everything is transferred into it at the destination. Anyway, because of this I had left the adaptor ring I needed for my TSE lens back at home. I wanted to use the tilt-shift lens to improve the depth of field for some very close foreground, near-far compositions. The sky was too bright and needed an ND grad, but without the adapter ring, I would need to handhold. This I don’t find terribly easy with the TSE, so I abandoned my plans with this lens and moved on to my 24-70mm, which I did have the adaptor ring for.

I managed to get just a couple of images before the mobile phone interrupted me. I was due at lunchtime to visit the dentist for a routine 6 month check-up and it was the surgery calling to ask is I could come in earlier as they had some cancellations and were looking to reorganise their day. How much earlier? – in 40 minutes time! I could hardly refuse, so despite the promising conditions the morning was cut short, as the real world intruded once again. I did at least come away with one image that I was happy with.

As mentioned - I am off to Montana and Wyoming in the next few days for a ten day photographic trip, so next month's Chronicle will no doubt touch on this trip.