Three Days in a Strange place — Part 2: Sunset in the Terres Noires
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
Watch Part 2 on YouTube:
After the rain of the first day, the skies finally turned, and the trip opened up into something else entirely. Not far from my basecamp lies a landscape that still doesn't look quite real to me: the Terres Noires — the “black earth” — badlands of dark, crumbling marl folded into ravines and canyons. From a distance the hills look almost burnt, dark against the green pines and the pale summits behind. I set out one evening to hike through them and chase the sunset. (If you missed how I got here, the trip starts in Part 1.)
Working the ravines
Once I reached the black sand, the place opened into what felt like a billion ravines. I climbed and started hunting compositions. The best frame came from a ravine running straight down toward a sunlit mountain: the canyon in deep shadow, the peak glowing. I bracketed three exposures to blend later, focused on the mountain, and waited for the contrast to soften. That one image made me really happy on the spot.
My exploration continued and revealed many more images to be made along the way.
Chasing the light
Higher up, I found a plateau that would hold the light right to sunset. I went on a hunt for a tree to anchor a foreground ad waited. For the strongest composition I built a panorama: four overlapping frames, manual mode, exposed for the brightest part of the sky, shot with and without the polariser so I'd have both to choose from at home. As I lined up the final frames, the light was amazing — and then, as it always does, it went dark, fast.
This place got under my skin. So much so that I'd come back for one more evening before the trip was done.
In Part 3, I return to finish the shot the rain stole on day one — and gamble on a final, uncertain sunset.
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