Dave (Chromasia.com) and I spotted this scene right at the tail end of a grueling three or four-mile slog in the rain. The light had completely dropped away by that point, and to be perfectly honest, the conditions were, let’s say, less than ideal for making images. But therein lies the beauty of the unknown, the magic of post-production, and, of course, a sturdy tripod.

Now, I’m not going to spout off and claim this image is anything extraordinary, but it was a solid attempt at the near-impossible in terms of available light, and I think it actually kinda works.

Sure, I’m feeling a little rusty on the old shutter at the moment—but that’s life, work, and everything else getting in the way. Still, I genuinely love photography, so if I can manage to pull a decent shot out of the bag on a dark, pissy, windy day, I must be doing something half right. I did feel like an absolute plonker when I finally lined it up, went to take the shot, and realized I’d left the self-timer on, though! A move Rodney Trotter would have been proud of…

On a completely separate note, for anyone who remembers the Crap Elvis post from last year—some fantastic news! He actually made it all the way around the world in that $30 Elvis suit. He just wrapped up the trip by appearing on stage at the now world-famous Parkes Festival over in Australia. If you want to catch up on his exploits across the 25 countries he visited, click through to www.crapelvis.com and check him out. Now he really is a plonker… but an incredibly funny one! … csj

capture date | 11.01.2009
camera | Canon EOS 5D
lens | 17-40mm f/4 L Series
focal length | 20mm
aperture | f/8
shutter speed | 1/8
shooting mode | aperture priority
exposure bias  | +0.0
metering mode | pattern
ISO | 200
flash | no
image quality | RAW + 16-bit TIFF
RAW converter | Photoshop CS3 + Lightroom + Photomatix Pro
cropped? | 16×9