"A Few Seconds of Light" - How I got the shot

Background

I look at this scene every single day. The calm waters of the Newtown bay, that is the Caribbean Sea; and the steep mountain range just beyond the village of Loubiere. From my backyard, the sun rises over these mountain and the effect of light hitting the slopes can be magical.

That day, the light hitting the mountains caught my attention!

The vision

I have attempted to capture this play of light a few times before, but it never worked out as I had imagined. The dance between the sun and clouds can change the quality of the light so suddenly, that what is there now will disappear in mere seconds.

However, today, I was prepared. I grabbed my camera and started looking for the best composition. After a few test shots I settled on an angle that I liked. It included shrubbery from my yard and old structures just below my home as frame of the main subject - Newtown bay. I tilted the camera vertically and captured 7 images that I later used to create the image shown below.

Seconds after capturing the series of images, the light changed and the scene was not as beautiful as the final image below.

Final thoughts

While processing the images, it occurred to me that almost 2 years ago, I’d captured an image from a very similar angle.⁣

I captured this shot on September 20, 2017… the day after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. The entire island was as brown as the mountains in the distance.

Here is the image captured from the same angle in 2019:

© 2019 Yuri A Jones | A Few Seconds of Light, captured from Kings Hill, Dominica (available as a canvas print here.)