gerardheloise
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo have been taken in a location called Ghar Lapsi in Siggiewi on the south coast of Malta.Time
I was on vacation in Malta and this is probably one of my best photo taken during this vacation. As I explain below I usually use a phone application in order to have the sunset hour in every location in the world. In that case the sunset hour was around 5.15 pm. So I took this photo at 5.03 pmLighting
I use an app on my phone that gives me bedtime or sunrise times all over the world. Here I had the exact time of the beginning of the sunset that's why I waited for the right moment to trigger. I tried various positions on the cliff before finding the one that allowed me to have the light of the sunset on the sea but also the one that was reflected on the cliff to the right of the image.Equipment
This was shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, an EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens, no tripod and flash have been used. (24mm 1/1000s f/6.3 320 iso)Inspiration
I like landscape pictures and I usually be inspired by all the photos I see or I've seen on communities of photographers like viewbug. Taking this I wanted to capture the incredible light of the sunset that I had under my eyes and which was reflected on the cliffs.Editing
I've made some adjustment in Lightroom in order to add some color contrast and open up the shadows. As I take all my photos in raw format, I can then play with the white balance settings. Here I slightly saturated the colors of the sky by using the DXO filter COLOR EFEX PRO. Then I applied a high-pass filter setting in Photoshop to increase the sharpness a bit.In my camera bag
I always carry my Canon 5D Mark III camera (I'm crazy of this camera!). Most of the time I use it with the Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens which is also amazing and very versatile. I also have several ND filters (1000 and 400) that I use with a remote control to do long exposure photos. I also take my "baby" (Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM) for close-ups and of course I also have a tripod !! So (as you can imagine) when I go outside to take pictures I also do some exercise (bodybuilding kind of) because my photo bag is very heavy...but I like it !Feedback
You have to prepare your trip before leaving especially if you go in a country you never been before. That's what I did here for Malta. I went on internet to know the most beautiful places to photograph in Malta and how to get there. This is a tip that I can give to make beautiful photos. One of the major features and skill of a photographer is to have patience to wait for the good conditions, which means waiting for the right time (in that case waiting for the sunset), the good light (which is the more complicated thing but the light should make the difference!!). Be prepared to face different types of weather conditions and different situations. You can also have an idea already in mind before taking the picture. More in general take inspiration from photo communities (like viewbug which is a great source of inspiration) and try to redo the photos that we see on these website or blog . Be inspired by other photographers and in a general way eat photo, sleep photo, and dream photo!!! Good luck ;)