Beautiful sunset over Gundaroo last night

On our way to a country pub dinner and stargazing in the little rural village of Gundaroo, north of Canberra, pro photographer Martin Olman and I got distracted by light.

And what cracking light it was... We couldn't believe the shots that were appearing on our cameras. Even a novice like me was hard-pressed to mess up with this subject material!

This top one looked like it was lifted straight out of The Lion King.

Amazingly, what started out looking great, just kept getting better.

I know very little about using Photoshop, so these shots are almost straight off the camera. However, I tried a bit of fill-in light with the next one to bring out the stump a little.

Off we went tearing through the countryside looking for another spot. As the light was failing, it looked like trees and hills were going to thwart us. Then at almost the last moment, the vista opened up, and the only place on the narrow country lane we could park was smack bang next to a picturesque dam!

The mad scramble for position saw us falling into a deep ditch and clambering over a barb wire fence, all while fitting lenses and checking settings... It was worth it.

I pushed this last one a little to bring out the foreground. But lost the crimson sky colour too much. Going to have to study up on Photoshop a little...