Landscape / Sunset

Deerleap Tree on LightTrac

by Jeff Bevan · Published 16th July 2012 · Updated 15th April 2024

Back in January I photographed Glastonbury Tor and experimented with a couple of iPhone apps that aim to track the arc of the Sun across the sky. The apps were Sun Seeker and LightTrac and I would recommend both. I hoped to use them again to photograph the Deerleap Tree silhouetted in front of the setting Sun.

I always take my pictures of the tree from the same place. At this spot there is a gate on which I attach my camera to take each picture.

This view point looks north-west towards the tree. From this angle the Sun will set behind the tree twice a year – first in May and then again in July. Back in May I made an attempt but the day was a uniform covering of grey. So I had to wait until July to try again.

The day a rare day for this summer in the UK as in the evening it stopped raining and for a few hours the Sun came out. I checked the LightTrac application to confirm that the Sun will set behind the tree. Below are two screenshots from LightTrac. The first showed the Sun would set at 9:20pm. The blue line on the right-hand screenshot showed the Sun would set just to the right of the tree.

Everything was set. I cleaned my sensor and lens and waited for sunset. As I waited the clouds got thicker and thicker. As I drove the few miles up the hill to the tree the sun was beginning to disappear. A few breaks in the cloud and I got a picture, but it was not quite what I wanted as the sun was still to the left of the tree trunk. This was the last of the sun. You could just make out the glow of the sunset behind the tree as it set in perfect position.

After the sun set I opened out the zoom lens to capture the blanket of cloud. It barely glowed with a little sun reflecting on the underside of the clouds. This was my favourite picture from the evening.