ObS Dawn
Mar, 2015Views
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Awards
Fall Award 2020
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
Outstanding Creativity
Magnificent Capture
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stuartd
April 07, 2015
Thank you so much - funny story behind this one is that I took it in the days before I used to 'plan' my shots a bit better. I'd actually gone down to grab a sunrise shot but the sun was directly behind me...!
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I shot this on the beach at Ogmore by Sea in South Wales (UK)Time
I had just finished my night shift and seen that the sun hadn't risen so instead of turning left to go home, I turned right and headed to the beach to get a picture of the sun rising over the sand.Lighting
The funny story here is that after a 12hr night shift my sleep deprived brain hadn't registered that the beach faced West, and consequently was never going to see a sunrise unless the poles altered! Not one to be deterred by little things like the sun rising directly behind me, I set about finding a composition I liked. As a consequence, any light in the image is from behind, and due to the overcast morning was quite filtered and soft.Equipment
Shot with my venerable Canon 60D and the Canon EFs 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5. Due to it being a long exposure of 119sec, I was almost certainly using my Formatt HiTech 10 stop ND grad.Inspiration
As hinted at above, I'm not one for wasting opportunities even when I get it wrong. I'm not one of those photographers that sit and contemplate 'the story' or 'the why', and instead I just go out to see what I can find. Sometimes it works out, and in this case, fortuitously whilst other times it doesn't.Editing
I try to get as much as I can right 'in camera' and as editing is not my strength I usually only go with basic tweaks. One such tweak is due to the original Formatt Hitech 10 Stop ND filter in use, they produce images with a strong purple cast to them. The fix is a simple white balance adjustment. After that I play with the highlights and shadows sliders to achieve an image that pleases my eye. Usually I will also adjust the whites and blacks as well, but only ever after the first two have been tweaked. I may adjust contrast, and I may also add a touch of clarity, which in this case really added that mirror like shine to the pool of water. Finally I converted it to a monochrome image.In my camera bag
Apart from my camera and the aforementioned lens, I will typically carry with me: my Tamron 70-200mm lens, my Nifty Fifty, a mirror (aka crystal) ball, and my lensbaby. On top of this I have my set of Formatt Hitech ND Grads - 3, 6, 10 and now I also own the 16 stop IRND (which is fantastic), a lens cloth, my intervalometer and finally, my light resistant cloth. This last I use for wrapping round the camera body to stop any light leaks, and in this shot as the light was directly behind me it would have entered via the viewfinder. Saved my bacon a few times.Feedback
This shot was from my very early days of using ND Grads and early days of my resurfaced interest in photographing aspects other than family holidays. As such, I was very much learning on the fly and some 6yrs later still consider myself a learner. However, one bit of knowledge I will pass on, is when shooting long exposures with so much sky on view like this image has, then look for a ratio of 60/40 cloud to sky, and that way you don't end up with a grey blob of nothing like I have across the middle of this image. My main advice though is always, have fun and enjoy whatever you do capture.
