What Happens Before the Sun Comes Up? -- Sunrise Photography
In my opinion, sunrise photography is one of the most difficult types to do. If nothing else, it's difficult just to get out of bed for it. But trying to think and act technically early, and in the dark can be a real challenge and takes some planning.
I woke up this morning around 4:30 knowing the sunrise was at 6:26. I keep track of the sunrise and sunsets via my watch, a Casio SGW-500H. Fighting the urge to curl up and go back to sleep, I mustered up the drive to get up and get out. I had a cup of coffee and three leftover sausage patties and headed out the door toward the SE Peninsula here in St. Kitts. It's best not to be hungry while photographing.
I already knew my destination: Turtle Beach. It is a place I have been on many occasions and I am always attracted to the dock there. I'm attracted to docks everywhere. I love the way they weather and twist with time. And I love capturing the contrast of the moving water around them. But just because a dock is there doesn't make it great for a sunrise shot. The location of the sunset is, obviously, important as well! From experience with this location I knew it would be good, but for locations I am unfamiliar with I use The Photographer's Ephemeris. It is a great piece of software that every landscape photographer can use.
I arrived on location well before the sun was up, around 5:00. It's a good idea to give yourself plenty of time for a shot like this. I brought my trusty pink flashlight... ...because I knew I would be working in the dark (and no one could see it was pink). A flashlight can help you compose your photo and focus your photo. Have you ever tried to focus a camera in the dark? The camera certainly can't do it for you. It uses contrast to focus, but there is no contrast when it's dark. So I put my lens on Manual focus, found a good focal point and composition with the flashlight and I was ready!
For this shot, the water was my priority. I wanted to blur the water to let the reflections, shadows and colors average out. To do this I used a 30 second exposure. With that in mind, I asked myself, "What is the maximum aperture and lowest ISO I can use to keep my shutter speed at 30 seconds while still retaining maximum depth of field (DOF)?" Landscape photographers like to keep everything in the scene in focus, so going much below f/8.0 makes that very hard to do. I was fortunate enough at this point that it was light enough to use ISO 100 for least amount of 'noise' in the photo, f/11.0 for maximum DOF, and still keep my 30 second exposure. Note: a long exposure will generate some noise in your image, but in can be corrected in-camera or in post processing.
As you can see the water, which was moving and had small waves, averaged out. It looks soft and you can see the reflections and shadows for the dock. There is some movement in the clouds and the boat as well. What I find interesting is what is standing still. Booby Island, named for the birds not the silhouette, the dock, and for 30 seconds, a great blue heron stood still farther down the coast. This photo was taken around 6:00 am, almost 30 minutes before the sun even reached the horizon; the very beginning of what is known as the 'Magic Hour'. Thirty minutes before and after sunrise/sunset is typically when the most magical light happens. So, while you were sleeping, I was living a dream.
Check out more of my images in the Landscapes gallery!
Oh, and I forgot to mention, I was also using a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter to manage the dynamic range. more on that in a future post.
