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Location
I took this shot at a very famous spot among those who live in Vancouver. It is called Whyte Cliff park located in West Vancouver and the island you see in the photo is Whyte Islet. Great and popular place to shoot sunsets from the shore.
Time
I chose to shoot that spot in the late evening when the sun got below the horison but was still giving out that soft glow from behind the mountains.
Lighting
Vancouver is famous for its marvellous sunrises and sunsets when it is not raining all day :)
The light that evening was astonishing - so soft and silky. There weren't many clouds in the sky, that is is why I had to play with the foreground and the sky a bit to make the photo more dramatic.
Equipment
I used to shoot with a Canon 450D for several years, however upgraded my gear to Canon 6D less than a year ago. Since that time I don't release it from my hands. As a lens I used a Canon 16-35mm F/4L with a B+W CPL filter on it which helped to cut down some of the unnecessary reflections from the rocks. Additionally, I used a small Slik tripod and a programmable remote control to eliminate any vibrations.
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Inspiration
Most of the time I am a spontaneous person. This kind of thing happened to me again that day. I was working at home and as the evening approached I felt the need to go somewhere to explore. My decision was to go to a spectacular place not too far away. My gear is usually packed, so I just had to grab it and get ready to go. When I came to the spot I noticed that the tide wasn't very high that day, and I decided to play with those open rocks in my shot. I snapped only 3 different exposures that evening and left the scene.
Editing
This particular shot requred two separate exposures - one for the sky, one for the foreground due to the big difference in the brightness. First, I stiched them together using luminosity masks. Second, I adjusted the basic CameraRAW settings like exposure, hightlights, shadows, white and black points. Third, using luminosity masks I did color correction for cerating parts of the image. Four, applied some Dodge and Burn technique, added a bit of Orthon glow to the highlights. Final step was to add some sharpnes and resize for web.
In my camera bag
My usual travel camera bag that I carry with me most of the time is quite heavy as I like to pack some snacks and other stuff besides the camera gear.
I carry the following camera gear with me: Canon 6D, Canon 16-35mm F/4L (for daytime landscapes), Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 (for night shots and astrophotography), Canon 100mm f/2.8 (for narrower landscape scenes and wildlife shots), B+W CPL filter that I use most of the time for my landscapes, Kenko PRO ND 1000 (for long exposures that I love so much:)), a programmable remote control, Slik Sprint Pro 2 tripod with a 3 axis head, a set of graduated ND filters.
Feedback
Try to go through a check list in your head before snapping a shot and answer those questions: do I have the right light that I need for this scene, is my composition interesting and perfect to me, is there a subject in my frame and does the shot tell a story about it, and last but not least, did I use all my maximum baggage of skills to make this shot technically perfect. Besides that just go out to the places you love of would like to visit and shoot. As much as possible. Explore. After all it is what it is about.
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