I've been a huge fan and long time subscriber to the First Man Photography YouTube channel. It's a fantastic photography channel with a great mix of inspirational and educational content. A few weeks ago I emailed Adam (owner of First Man Photography) to let him know what we were doing with 73in73 and to see if he was able/willing to come on a shoot with us one evening. He replied almost immediately saying he would love to, I was over the moon... this was going to be good!
We talked about different locations and settled on Winnats Pass. This is location number 4 in the book and one of the few locations I had actually photographed before. We agreed on a date and crossed our fingers for good weather. I cannot describe to you how desperate I was for the recent weather to hold out for a little longer. Adam has a large audience of followers and if the video he publishes is a great success it could lead to more followers & donations for 73in73. The forecast wasn't good, in fact, the night before we were due to meet I emailed Adam to reschedule because it had given out rain and cloud.
In the end, we decided to risk it. We met Adam at the top of Winnats pass (the nettles were really out in force, it took ages to get through them), it was so good to meet him in person, he was an absolute gent. It was also very interesting to see how he films his vlogs, we got some excellent tips and advice from him. The three of us filmed some video together and even had time to get the drone out. The weather was still overcast but there was a slight gap starting to form on the horizon so there was hope yet.
As the golden hour was starting to fade and the sun started to set, the sky started to change; a warm glow was developing in-between the clouds. We started to take our shots. Every passing minute the sky was changing colour, there were blues, oranges and pinks appearing. It looked like the sky was on fire. As if that wasn't good enough, a full and well defined rainbow appeared behind us. Suddenly we were all trying to take photographs of what was in front and behind us plus recording video in-between, it was a lot of fun! This photo of Grace under the rainbow was taken by Adam:
The sky in front of us continued to get better and better, I must have taken close to 50 photos in the space of 2 minutes, the one I have settle on is this one:
It was an absolutely incredible night, both Tracy and I loved every minute of it. By the way, all those little white dots are sheep, I have never seen so many of them here at the same time. After the sun had more or less set Adam took this shot of us all:
We started to pack our things away, Adam handed me something, his tripod. "This is for you". It's no secret that using my tripod has been a frustrating experience at best, but this act of generosity had me lost for words and a little emotional. We walked back down to the car together and said our goodbyes. It will be a night neither of us will ever forget, not just because of the epic sky but because of Adam. He is editing the video together over the next few days, it should be on his channel on Sunday. As soon as it's up we will make sure we link it everywhere so you can check it out.
Thank you Adam, it was an absolute pleasure.