Sunrise over Lake Erie
This shot was taken in May 2012, on a photoworkshop weekend. I had travelled to Kelleys Island in northern Ohio, for a workshop hosted by pro photographers Dave Fitzsimmons and Art Weber.
On Sunday morning, we got up around 5:00 am and headed to the eastern side of the island. We had arrived about 10 minutes before the sun came up, so we only had a little bit of time to scout out locations. In this area, the shore line was a rock slab that was fairly level. In one location, though, as seen in the picture, the flatness was broken by a shallow depression, which filled with water. This was the location that I had staked as my own for the sunrise. I really liked the foreground detail, and felt that it added a nice sense of depth to the image. Unfortunately, there were only wisps of clouds on the horizon, and the rest of the sky was completely clear.
Since the sky lacked a lot of interesting detail, I placed the horizon very high in the image. This leaves a majority of the image to contain the foreground details.
I originally took this image in portrait format. The details in the rock formation at the bottom portion of the scene contained less visual interest than the details in the rock in the picture, so I opted in post processing to crop it to a square format.
Compositionally, I used the idea of foreground, midground, and background to increase the sense of depth in the picture. The rocks form the foreground detail, the waves and the lone rock sticking above the water form the midground detail, and the horizon, clouds, and sun form the background detail. This layout enhances the 3D nature of the scene.
As I was composing the image, I made sure that the strong lines of the depression in the rock did not come in contact with the sides of the image. I centered the two ends of the lines at the water’s edge to balance the image. By using a tripod, I could set it up once to make sure that the horizon was level, and didn’t have to worry about that for the rest of the pictures. When photographing a body of water it is very critical that the horizon is level. If not, the picture can be unsettling to look at.
I used a tripod for this shot, as it allowed me to compose once, and maintain that composition for the duration of the sunrise. Also, it removed any concerns of lack of sharpness due to hand-holding the camera in the early morning light.
I also chose to set up the camera about 2 to 3 feet off the ground, rather than at normal standing height, in order to bring emphasis to the foreground rocks.
For exposure, I used spot metering, pointing at the sky just above the horizon, but away from the sun, close to the upper left corner of the image. The brightness of this point in the sky during sunrise or sunset is approximately 18% grey, which provides a properly exposed image. I selected f8 for the aperture, since most lenses are sharpest around this aperture, giving the best quality. I also selected an ISO of 100, since this also produces the best quality. Since I was in aperture priority mode, the camera then selected the shutter speed (1/20 second) that it calculated it needed to achieve the correct exposure. I then switched to manual mode and dialed in the f8 aperture, 1/20 second shutter, and ISO sensitivity of 100, and composed the image.
In post processing, I adjusted Color Curves to increase the contrast and to help saturate the colors, to be more in line with what actually was present at the sunrise. I also locally increased the brightness of the rocks to bring out the details. The image was also cropped to a square format to eliminate some of the sky and the foreground rocks. Lastly, sharpening was applied using a high-pass filter.
As shot: After post processing:
On Sunday morning, we got up around 5:00 am and headed to the eastern side of the island. We had arrived about 10 minutes before the sun came up, so we only had a little bit of time to scout out locations. In this area, the shore line was a rock slab that was fairly level. In one location, though, as seen in the picture, the flatness was broken by a shallow depression, which filled with water. This was the location that I had staked as my own for the sunrise. I really liked the foreground detail, and felt that it added a nice sense of depth to the image. Unfortunately, there were only wisps of clouds on the horizon, and the rest of the sky was completely clear.
Since the sky lacked a lot of interesting detail, I placed the horizon very high in the image. This leaves a majority of the image to contain the foreground details.
I originally took this image in portrait format. The details in the rock formation at the bottom portion of the scene contained less visual interest than the details in the rock in the picture, so I opted in post processing to crop it to a square format.
Compositionally, I used the idea of foreground, midground, and background to increase the sense of depth in the picture. The rocks form the foreground detail, the waves and the lone rock sticking above the water form the midground detail, and the horizon, clouds, and sun form the background detail. This layout enhances the 3D nature of the scene.
As I was composing the image, I made sure that the strong lines of the depression in the rock did not come in contact with the sides of the image. I centered the two ends of the lines at the water’s edge to balance the image. By using a tripod, I could set it up once to make sure that the horizon was level, and didn’t have to worry about that for the rest of the pictures. When photographing a body of water it is very critical that the horizon is level. If not, the picture can be unsettling to look at.
I used a tripod for this shot, as it allowed me to compose once, and maintain that composition for the duration of the sunrise. Also, it removed any concerns of lack of sharpness due to hand-holding the camera in the early morning light.
I also chose to set up the camera about 2 to 3 feet off the ground, rather than at normal standing height, in order to bring emphasis to the foreground rocks.
For exposure, I used spot metering, pointing at the sky just above the horizon, but away from the sun, close to the upper left corner of the image. The brightness of this point in the sky during sunrise or sunset is approximately 18% grey, which provides a properly exposed image. I selected f8 for the aperture, since most lenses are sharpest around this aperture, giving the best quality. I also selected an ISO of 100, since this also produces the best quality. Since I was in aperture priority mode, the camera then selected the shutter speed (1/20 second) that it calculated it needed to achieve the correct exposure. I then switched to manual mode and dialed in the f8 aperture, 1/20 second shutter, and ISO sensitivity of 100, and composed the image.
In post processing, I adjusted Color Curves to increase the contrast and to help saturate the colors, to be more in line with what actually was present at the sunrise. I also locally increased the brightness of the rocks to bring out the details. The image was also cropped to a square format to eliminate some of the sky and the foreground rocks. Lastly, sharpening was applied using a high-pass filter.
As shot: After post processing: