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YuanHenryZhen
dawn of sydney 2 100 dpi
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dawn of sydney 2 100 dpi



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long exposure landscape of sunrise.... I'm quite expecting one day printing it in 6x4 feet hanging on my wall.....

long exposure landscape of sunrise.... I'm quite expecting one day printing it in 6x4 feet hanging on my wall.....
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cameraCanon EOS Kiss X4

settings Aperture f/22 ISO 100 Shutter 30/1 Focal Length 18/1 

upload_dateAug, 2018

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Peer Award
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1 Comment |
YuanHenryZhen
 
YuanHenryZhen September 18, 2018
thanks very much for ur appreciation Wudalibabu & Valinda11

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken at the north side of the Sydney Harbour bridge, next to the luna park. I did use tripod but nothing else. And here’s some very interesting story behind that I’d like to share.

Time

It was in the morning, I got there before dawn, trying to catch up the sunrise. It was a bit raining earlier, so you could see some water spots on the screen, the rain was almost stopped before the sun rose. From the shot, you can see there were a lot of clouds and quite dark in the sky. Actually the sun can’t be seen in the shot but only the color reflected through the cloud that reminding us it had rising.

Lighting

Here’s a rule of the photography that professionals all know: golden hour. This means half-hour at sunrise and half-hour at sunset. In my experience sometimes it could reduce to 20 minutes each side. However, photos would look better in most of the case when there’re clouds in the sky than clean good weather. For example this shot, there will have a lot less element to enjoy if there are no clouds in the sky. Clouds not just provided various of shapes and colors for our eyes, but also reflecting the colors and lights to everything else and made them interesting. The lighting was so dramatic that morning, the sky had clouds everywhere, but not totally covered, so sky still can be seen bits and bites here and there. They were great surprises between the clouds. Even the clouds weren’t deadly lying there, wind pushed them moving while the different thickness of the clouds became a set of the complicated reflector of lighting.

Equipment

Another exciting thing is that this shot wasn’t even taken by professional cameras such as Nikon 800 or Canon 5D series. That was taken by a Canon 550d which is a camera for beginners to practice their photography desire. That was the only camera I had though. Even today I still don’t have a camera that is “up to date” ( but at least now I got 5D II) It proved the theory to me that if you are good at storytelling, what tool you used is not as important as the talent of the artist. Just like who would ever ask the chef after an A La Carte meal: what pots and pans you cooked to make it so delicious? I don’t deny that I’ve done post-production. Just like no raw food is served in dinner. If you want to argue with me skeptically with salad, OK, you win.

Inspiration

To shot a nice sunrise with the landmark of harbor bridge and Opera House of Sydney was one thing I always wanted, but I didn’t do it just any day, because it wasn’t the right weather, or time or … It’s really like a call of mother nature. The inspiration made me got up at that morning (in many case I’m a night person, you know what it means. But doesn’t mean I can’t change. It got some very interesting story behind as well) and pop into my old car (I don’t have that any more…. Live in Sydney without a car?@#$%!) The interesting thing about visual creative arts is that the favorite artwork of the artist is not necessarily the favorite of the audiences. This “Dawn Of Sydney” is probably the closest that conjunction with “my favorite” and “audience’s favorite”.

Editing

nothing to mention...

In my camera bag

Can't tell. Thank to Covid 19, me and my gears are separated in two different continents.

Feedback

As a talented artist (I have no shame to claim that I am, even no price has come to my head I still insist this) I’d like to leave a “to be continued” tale with this story of my shot: After almost the same spot that I took the shot, I saw some very fun things that triggered my creativity when I turn around to anotherangle, and I took another shot, and that shot didn’t catch much attention like this one. But in my own opinion, I would give that shot as high score as this. So to any other photography enthusiasts try more than one spot, one angle, one-shot is a great tip for you. I went back to the same location the same day afternoon, in about 100 meters away I took a brother shot “Dusk of Sydney”. It accomplished my artistic experiment: showing two faces of the same subjects by opposite timing and lighting. I call them golden hour twin shots. So what you see is the one-shot, but the story is a total of three shots. Should I say: “ to continue…”

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