It was a dull and dreary day, and what, at first glance, appeared to be a lone tree in a field looked like a great subject for a minimal long exposure image.

Upon further investigation for angles from which to set up, the 'lone tree' revealed itself as actually being two trees leaning against each other and becoming one in the upper entangled branches. I've never seen anything like this before where they are so far removed from any other trees, so I picked a spot to show the separation and set up to do some long exposure work.

It wasn't long after I'd started that the rain (that wasn't forecast) came rolling in, and I had little choice but just to cover the camera and bag up and stand in it until it passed.

Just shortly before it stopped, the only bit of light I saw all day came bursting through a tiny break in the cloud to illuminate the tree and the passing storm clouds. A quick reset of the camera from long exposure and removal of the filters saw this captured instead.

Certainly not what I'd intended to shoot, but it is something I'm far happier with. You can still see the rain coming down on the left-hand side of the scene.

I did get really wet taking this, but the thought of missing any potential shots after the rain finished (which can sometimes be the case) made me stay; I just got very fortunate with that little burst of light that only lasted 1 minute or less.