Direct Hit

Last year I missed the sunset making a direct hit down the throat of Fuji-san due to some rare crappy winter weather on the golden weekend. It seemed that Sunday Feb 19 was the likely day for the bullseye though so this year I cleared my weekend early evenings for a bit of  “magic-hour” photography.

Cold, clear, sunny days are the norm for mid-winter here and I can usually see Fuji-san well over half of the time, but mostly just first thing in the morning. As the day gets going a haze builds up which obscures her from view till just before sunset when she’s sometimes been known to make a brief reappearance before dark.

The sunset on Saturday 18th was a classic and crashed into the South-facing slopes.

Sunday 19th was cloudier in the morning but cleared up a bit by lunchtime. An hour before sunset though and there was still too much cloud around. Things weren’t looking good. I set up the camera anyway hoping for one of the old girl’s occasional curtain calls before dark.

The sun was nearly setting but still there was no sign of her. Then right at the death, just as the sun was disappearing, you could slowly start to make out the familiar triangular silhouette emerging. A couple of minutes later, with the mountain now almost fully in view, the sinking crescent of the sun seemed to briefly form a red-hot peak to complete a perfect cone above the usual square-edged crater. Well worth waiting a year for.

Direct hit - Feb 19, 5:19pm



3 minutes earlier. Feb 19, 5:13pm



Saturday warm-up - Feb 18, 5:16pm