Photo Description

Belmont, Newcastle NSW.

This day had begun with photographing an absolutely gorgeous sunrise down at Redhead Beach in Lake Macquarie. But as the old rhyme goes, “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning”, things weren’t to stay gorgeous for long.

The “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning” rhyme is a general guide used for forecasting weather and has been around for the better part of 2,000 years. It is based on the reddish glow of the morning sky, so if the morning skies are like this, it is because clear skies to the eastern horizon allow the sun to light the undersides of moisture-bearing clouds. The saying assumes that more such clouds are coming in from the west. Which is inevitably what happened.

As the evening approached, so did some thick storm clouds and pretty soon we were inundated with a heavy downpour over most of Newcastle. With sunset approaching I checked the radar/satellite imagery and it appeared to be clearing out to the west so I jumped in the car to go looking for a location. Driving through the torrential rain I remember thinking “why am I doing this? It was perfect weather for movies indoors”, but once I’d arrived at the car park and saw the sky clearing up my mood returned to excitement. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect – just as the sun was setting and throwing out some golden colours, the clouds had moved over the jetty and almost divided the sky perfectly overhead, from the dark and foreboding blues/maroons of the confronting storm to the warm and welcoming reds/yellows from a promising sun.

I’m stoked I made the final decision to head out rather than stay at home in the warmth.