Too near the sun

click photo to enlarge
Daedalus was exiled to Crete because he gave Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, the string that Theseus used to escape from the Labyrinth and the Minotaur. So, being a master craftsman, he came up with an escape plan that involved fashioning pairs of wings of wax and feathers for himself and his son, Icarus. However, the rashness of youth caused Icarus to spurn his father's advice and, flying too near to the sun, the wax melted causing the feathers to fall off the wings, and the rash boy to plunge to his death in the Mediterranean. In so doing he sparked a metaphor about "venturing too close to the sun" that has been pressed into service by writers down the ages.

I thought about this as I looked at my shot of some old sheds on Lincolnshire's flat Fenland landscape. An overnight frost and fog was being illuminated by the rising sun, and I tried to include some of the colours I could see being produced as the rays penetrated the cold air. However, I think I ventured too close to the sun and pink that I don't think figured in the colours of the sky, was introduced into the shot, perhaps by the light bouncing around the lens elements. However, I quite like the effect, and see it as an artifact of the photographic process akin to flare, noise or reduced dynamic range.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On