The Sutton landscape summons me to Rohan in The Lord of the Rings. Golden grasses and jagged schist cover the landscape. These seemingly go on forever, until they hit the Rock and Pillar Range in the northwest which always stands in shadow at this time of the day.
Sutton.
I wanted to be at Pukerangi to shoot the railway shelter illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun. Pukerangi (then Barewood) was a railway stop that opened in 1891. It later became important as a signalling point to control traffic through the Taieri Gorge. In the 1990s the majority of the once-great Otago Central Railway rails were pulled up, and now Pukerangi serves as the last stop of the Taieri Gorge Train.
With Pukerangi in mind for the target, I turned off the highway onto Pukerangi Road. Shortly before the shared road and rail bridge I came across this railway hut catching the sun. I made a few compositions, all with the sun lighting the hut, trying to capture a few different ideas.
I started by making explicit the hut’s connection with the railway. The railway becomes a strong element and vanishing point, and as a bonus of the wide focal length we see some of the Sutton landscape around it.
Hut I.
My next idea was to make as simple a composition as possible. Here the shot looks northwest towards the Rock and Pillar range. I like the simplicity, however there is nothing to link this hut to the railway. Without the context, the hut looks out of place.
Hut II.
I then attempted to unify the two ideas. Show rail, but make the composition as simple as possible. I find this the weakest composition of the three because of the dead space in the left of the frame. The cloud just adds clutter.
Hut III.
Back in the car, I continued down the road to Pukerangi rail shelter. This is the subject I had in mind for sunset. The sun rays hit only this side of the rail shelter which limited me to compositions like this.
Pukerangi Shelter.
I wasn’t happy with that shot and the sun was getting lower. I walked around for other subjects. Nearby was a farmhouse (perhaps once upon a time a railway house) that sat metres away from the rail line.
Farmhouse.
Sunset at Pukerangi.
Sunset at Pukerangi II.
Sutton II.
With the sun now behind the Rock and Pillar, I drove back along the road I had come in on. It was now dark on the ground, but the hut was still holding some light. I got out the tripod and took this four second exposure. Of the night, this was my favourite. It has the compositional elements that I wanted (hut, rail, mountain), while the clutter in the scene is hidden by the low light. The long exposure adds a softness to the scene which best represents the look and feel of when I was there.
