On a June morning, I was heading reluctantly for London on another business trip. Heavy rain was forecast, and I wondered, as many landscape photographers do, whether or not to take my camera with me. But it is never the case of taking ‘just a camera’. If an image is to be made, all filters, lenses, tripod and ladder must be taken. It’s an ‘all or nothing’ business. Everything must be available in preparation for the surprise image that may present itself.

As I drove due east towards London, the rain was throwing up so much spray that I was unable to see the landscape to my left. I could never have known that on my return, I would discover a combination of colour and line that would satisfy me for many years to come.

To be on the cusp of bad weather receding, and good weather arriving (whatever good or bad weather means), often ensures a sharpness to the air. All the floating dust has been driven down with the rain, allowing undiffused sunlight across the landscape.

The north-westerly (how often one hears mariners speak of this troublesome wind) which had brought the driving rain to accompany my easterly journey was to greet me with fairer weather on my return that afternoon.

It was an electrifying moment, which appeared to have materialized once again for me and for me alone. The farmer responsible for this astonishing juxtaposition of colours found me on the fourth step of my ladder. Approaching me as if it was entirely normal to be standing on a stepladder in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside, he observed that I would be unlikely ever to see anything quite like this again. ‘I planted my rape too late’ he said. ‘Oilseed rape – the yellow one – is an early spring crop and linseed a late spring/early summer one. You have benefited from my error’. In a state of pure photographic rapture, I motioned to the line of the wall delineating the division of the two crops, and the minute splash of bright light far beyond in the distance, thankful that it activated this part of the image, lending much sought-after depth. We discussed the heavy monochrome cloud which was full of foreboding, and I wondered whether this image with the pulsating tension between the blue and the yellow would appear too gaudy, too psychedelic, just simply too unbelievable. ‘People may not believe this image,’ I said to my farmer friend. ‘I will testify,’ he said. ‘I will bear witness.’  Charlie Waite