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On just the second day of our visit to Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, my wife Liz and I decided to spend the day driving and exploring around the interior of the island.
The forecast was for a cloudy day, which makes for easier driving, and the road map we picked up at the airport on our way in showed some interesting looking winding roads to enjoy.
We headed north from our base at Taurito on the south coast, up through the small town of Mogan and on into the mountainous interior.
The drive proved a lot longer and more arduous than anticipated, and sunset found us driving along the incredibly bendy GC-60, just starting to head back south having been round in a loop.
I was concentrating on the road when Liz suddenly exclaimed 'That's Mount Tiede, over on Tenerife'!
Pulling over at the next available layby, we got out and hiked a few paces through the scrub to the edge of an escarpment, which gave us the view shown here.
Liz was quite right, Mount Teide on the neighbouring island of Tenerife was clearly visible sticking up through the sea mist that had formed over the short stretch of Atlantic ocean that lay between us.
But that wasn't all, as one of Gran Canaria's famous volcanic rock formations, Roque Bentayga, was highlighted against the late afternoon sky as well.
I was in two minds as to whether to get my camera out and record the scene, as the light was pretty flat and uninteresting at the time, and with just a few minutes to go until sunset I wasn't expecting any improvement.
But as we'd already stopped, and with parking places few and far between on this somewhat challenging road, I decided to make the effort and unpacked all the necessary gear to make a semi-decent snapshot of the scene.
Wow! Am I glad that I did!
I'd just finished setting up camera, tripod and ND grad filter when a last gasp of sunlight found its way through a gap in the overcast and turned the sky to the west a vivid orange.
The glow was picked up by the sea mist below and for a few moments only the scene was transformed from bland to magical as I frantically photographed as many different compositions as I could.
This was no time for considered contemplation, and I kept on shooting until the skyglow faded and the greyness returned.
Of all the photos I took during that brief interlude, this one gave the best balance between light and dark, colour and monochrome, and with a reasonable amount of post processing in Lightroom to bring out the best in this rendering, I'm really happy with the final result.
I'm so glad we stopped when we did, but it wasn't half a long and tiring drive in the dark to get back to our hotel - well worth it though - what an experience!
Filename - gran canaria roque bentayga 01.jpg
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 50mm
Exposure - 2 secs @ f11, ISO100
Location - Roque Bentayga, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - 3 stop ND grad filter used to balance exposure
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