MENDIP HILLS 17 – STORM (MONO)

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Pines recoiling from the southerly blasts at Priddy Mineries Reserve, on the top of the Mendip Hills; 23 Dec 2013.

With a bad weather alert broadcast, I went down very early to the Somerset Levels yesterday, arriving there before dawn.  Sitting there in the dark watching all things materialise around me as the dawn crept up was magical, but there were downsides.  With a southerly airflow the day was mild, but whereas I’d left Bristol in dry and calm darkness, the weather forecasts’ warnings proved absolutely right with the advent of strengthening winds and worsening rain almost as soon as I’d pulled up and got stuck into my frugal repast – thick, bitter marmalade sandwiches, plain chocolate digestive biscuits (well its Christmas!) and hot, sweet coffee – in Swanshard Lane, near Polsham.

Dull light came and I pushed on westwards towards Tadham and Tealham Moors, but the little roads were already very wet and the rain and wind worsened.  I stayed quite a time down there, glorying in the wildness of the elements, but that wet place was just getting very much wetter, and with the waterways full to the brim and the roads actively awash and strewn with tree debris, I at last started for home.

My preferred way back to Bristol lay over the top of the Mendip Hills and, at around 1,000 feet on their bare tops, things were getting very wild indeed.  I pulled over in the lee of some pines that the storm was tossing all over the place and, with the gusts buffeting the car and falling twigs clanking on its bodywork, I sat and fired at the tormented trees through the rain-soaked windscreen.

The angle of this tree trunk is not all wind-induced.  I’ve added tilt to (hopefully!) improve the composition, but I hope it gives some idea of the wildness of the day.

D800 with 70-300 Nikkor at 70mm; 1600 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2’s Film Noir 1 preset.
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