https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaydaley/16523256975/ I decided I would delve back into the archives and look for some old photos of this amazing night up at the summit of Mt Cook with the OOAK gang last year when I slowly began to realise in shocking horror that my RAW’s from that trip had mysteriously vanished. My frenzied looking sped up at a hastened pace – hard drive 1, hard drive 2, laptop 1, laptop 2. Nothing. I’ve never lost RAW’s before so this was new territory and I drifted off into confusion and lost bewilderment – how did this happen and what did it mean? Were there shots I hadn’t yet looked at and saved as Tiffs. What have I missed and where have they gone. It was amidst this turmoil that I remembered an event from that night. Damien and I had been standing on the snow with our cameras next to each. Damien with a 50mm tilt shift and I with a 15mm in vertical orientation when we decided to swap each other’s memory cards to ‘ augment out haul’, after all, our cameras were identical. Fortunately I was right and safely stored in his possession was an identical raw file of this magical place to one of the few that I had lost. Once again I was able to relieve this extraordinary experience. A few hours after this image was shot I captured one of my all time most precious images, Galactic Dance (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaydaley/14975211327/) with this vista, the Aurora Australis and the beautiful milky way all on show. Interestingly, this image has the faintest hint of that famous purple glow just beginning to show in the bottom left corner of the sky. View Large and, as always, thanks for looking!
The Alchemist
