week 16: Early morning sun rays

I've been wanting to take a picture of sun rays for quite some time, but apart from the occasional rays showing through the clouds which would invariably only appear when I'm on a train with dirty windows, I haven't had the opportunity to do so.

Arriving in South Africa it was grey and rainy, not quite what I hoped for and the weather prediction wasn't too promising either, but I did want to go out walking in a nature reserve with my dad as I always do and we picked the day it seemed most likely to get some sunshine. Got up early that morning to find a beautiful day with no rain cloud in sight. And as we were about to get in the car to go, I saw the sun streaking through the trees. I knew I wanted to get the wooden well my dad built in the picture too and not knowing how much time I had I didn't bother with my tripod. It turns out I only had about a 10 minute window, so it was a good thing too. 

I tried again the following day and though the sun shone, the air conditions must have been different because the sun rays just didn't quite show up like the first day. That was a pity because this time my tripod was all set up and I would have been able to bring down my ISO significantly. I also think this may have worked better if I had bracketed the exposure (on a tripod) to avoid the white blown out areas. As it was I did have to play with getting some more detail in the darker areas (thankfully I do shoot RAW).  But I do like how the trees frame it making it look a lot more secluded than the actual large garden lawn which is really there and for once I actually remembered to put some foreground interest in too.