Windsurfer Silhouette
Aug, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I was at the beach, close to where I live, to do a training session of open water swimming for a Xterra triathlon. It turned out the wind was strong and the waves to big to get a good training session. Fortunately I had grabbed my camera and my telephoto lens before I left, as I knew there is always a great chance there's some surfers at that beach. So I turned to my backup plan, to go shoot some surfers.Time
I got really lucky with this photo. As I abandoned my training session, I got in to my car to drive up to the spot for the surfers. If there where none I would continue driving home, but as it turned out there where quite a few surfers there. At the same time as I got back out of my car, I spotted a surfer coming up from the water, directly towards me. So it was the first photo I took, and the actually the only good photo I got that day. It was taken on the 4th of August 2016 at 7:20 PM, roughly 1 hour before sunset.Lighting
As the beach is on the west coast of Denmark, and the sun is setting in the west, I thought it would be a great opportunity to do a silhouette photo with the sun as a backlight. I have thought about doing a silhouette photo for a long time, but I have been struggling on finding the subject I wanted. This is actually my first attempt.Equipment
I shot this with my Canon 5D mark III and a Sigma 120-300 Sport lens, handheld. It's a heavy lens to shoot handheld, but it has a good stabiliser so it can be done unless you are using it an entire day.Inspiration
I like to look at photos from many different photographers to both learn something new about photography and to get inspired. I can't say which photo or photographer that inspired me to do a silhouette photo, as I've seen to many to remember.Editing
I always shoot RAW and use Adobe Lightroom for post-processing. For this photo I adjusted the white balance, added some contrast, clarity and vibrance. I also gave it a small crop.In my camera bag
I normally do not have the lens I used for this photo with me, as it's to heavy. What I normally have in my bag is the Canon 5D mark III with a Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens attached, and that is it. It is a fantastic camera and a amazing and versatile lens even though it is a prime.Feedback
Most of what I know about photography, being camera settings or composition, I've learned watching YouTube. I do not try to learn everything at once. What I do is to see a video and then try to figure out if I can use that when I'm shooting. If so, that is probably all I do for a while until it comes natural to me. If you’re not used to shoot in manual mode, this is a great approach to learning it step-by-step. When I started out shooting in manual, I did not fully understand what aperture was. I understood shutter speed and ISO (as my dad thought me that so many years ago when shooting on an old film camera) though. So not understanding aperture, and trying to control three factors (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) at the same time, the result was a lot of under- or overexposed shots. Therefore, I turned to aperture priority mode and set the ISO settings to auto. That way, the only thing I had to choose was the aperture. That is when I started to learn about depth of field (and when I decided to upgrade to a full frame camera even though I did not upgrade until later). After a while I started messing around with the ISO settings as well. Then l did the same routine with shutter priority mode before I went back to manual. For this image, I used the rule of thirds. When I learned the rule of thirds that was all I used for months. It is still the composition rule I use the most. Next thing I tried to focus on when I shot this picture was the foreground. I wanted to use the foreground together with a shallow depth of field to make a perspective that draw attention to the subject. This is also something I learned the same way as the rule of thirds. Last thing I did was to go low. Getting closer to the ground often make the image so much better.
