This is how you sunset — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Thank you, Mother Nature. I am one shimmying fool.
It’s been a long time, man (and women and boys and girls). Sunsets have been alluding me for the better part of Summer. That certainly changed with a flourish today. As I was down on Dock Road shooting I honestly didn’t know what direction to fix my tripod. With three hundred and sixty degrees of awesomesauce happening it was damn hard to choose.
In the end I went a few I my favorite things: I was able to get the octagon house in the shot and the Moon. Excellent. Seriously though, this one is all on happenstance. The sky produced with unreal cloud patterns and color this day. All I had to do was show up.
Welp. Here I am. Breaker of Rules. Destroyer of Conventional Wisdom. Over and over you’ll hear keep those horizons straight! and get those power lines out of there! And that’s all well and good. Rules exist for a reason. They keep us focused and give us a proven roadmap for success. So whether it’s the rule of thirds or don’t shoot in bad light—ahem, midday—we’re given useful constructs for our photography. And I appreciate that but sometimes you’ve just got to throw the rules out the window.
Just the other day I was chasing down a sunset at my usual Cedar Run Dock Road jaunt and could quickly tell it wasn’t going to materialize into much. Instead of setting up my tripod and stubbornly waiting for the color drama that would never be, I opted for the change-up and went old school handheld. Bugs be damned I was just going to have some fun photo walking for a few minutes. I began taking shots at odd angles using non-standard compositions. To remain off the beaten path I used Trey Ratcliffe’s Adobe Lightroom preset, The Navigator and rendered this post-apocalyptic look.
So get out there and shoot what you feel. Rules be damned, I dig it.
Summer sunset on the salt marsh — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Finally, folks. Finally
I’ve been in some kind of sunset slump. Whether by poor scheduling or just busted weather conditions, it’s been months since I’ve caught me a quality sundown. Somehow tonight my spider sense was tingling.
During my commute home I was noticing some promising cloud development and decided to bail on my evening run. Somewhat hesitant in my decision, I got home, packed my things and made for my old standby: Dock Road. As pine forest gave way to sweet salt marsh the horizons opened up before me; I knew my slump was over. Drama was written the sky over and there I was to take it all in. Camera in hand. Finally.
Interestingly, the photograph I wound up posting was not one of the shots I originally had in mind for a final product. I assumed I was going to go with one of the bracketed exposure sets that came about 7 minutes after sun went down, as is the my norm. Instead I went with a shot featuring the sun still with us. It just goes to show that you can’t always go with your assumptions (and the back of your viewfinder). You’ve get to get home, upload and take it all in. Let your photographs speak for themselves.
Marsh gone green — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Photographing the salt marsh is not without trade-offs. In winter deep color sunsets rendered almost daily reign supreme; while in summer, the rich awakening of lush green marsh grass tells our eyes all they need to know that summer is here. Each are splendid in their own way.
Tonight was my first night shooting wide angle in what feels like ages, and I haven’t been to Dock Road in I can’t remember how long. Let’s put it this way, last I laid eyes on the marsh it was only showing the slightest hint of nascent green spread thinly over the muted expense. Seeing the rolling green tonight was invigorating. And while I wound up clouded out of a promising sunset, I still captured an enticing glimpse of the marsh imbued with life once again.
It doesn’t matter; it’s in the past — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Lazy poster alert
This photograph is a holdover from this past Sunday and I’m only now—Friday afternoon—getting around to posting it. As it was a Sunday evening I had more pressing priorities, ya know, Game of Thrones premiere and stuff like that. As for why I couldn’t post it some other time this week? Well, I have no excuse. Except baseball.
Thinking back to last Sunday conditions were cold. And windy. I was greeted by a nice headwind off Barnegat Bay as I was making my bracketed exposures and was concerned that sturdy tripod be damned, I’d face some camera shake. Fortunately the sharpness seems solid enough so I don’t think it was much of a factor. The low-lying clouds hanging just above the horizon was actually smoke from an area forest fire that happened in Chatsworth, New Jersey, Sunday afternoon. To my knowledge it was not a controlled burn. Hopefully the damage wasn’t too extensive.
This spot, while on Cedar Run Dock Road, was a new vantage point for me. All in all, not a bad spot.
Upcoming
I’m heading down to Washington D.C. on Saturday afternoon with some friends for the Cherry Blossom Festival. With any luck I’ll have a few pictures to share. Until then happy weekend!
Still worth it — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Twilight was cold. And windy. And frankly the sky was largely meh—a ho-hum vestige at best. Did I mention it was windy? And cold?
Wind was such a factor I was concerned about camera shake with my exposures. Were it to wind up being an issue it would have been further compounded as I was taking seven bracketed exposures to boost dynamic range. Looking at my images back at the house revealed the trusty tripod did its work and kept the images clean and clear. Seriously, I can’t stress the importance of a sturdy tripod enough; particularly if landscape photography is going to be your thing.
Back home I took a little departure from my standard post-processing workflow. After some initial tweaks to the seven exposures in Lightroom, I imported the images into Photomatix for merging. After re-importing a single image back to Lightroom I edited to taste further, bringing about a more representative dynamic range. It’s here where I departed from the status quo and took it an extra step. Bringing the image over to Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4 I applied the Duplex filter to make the final image more diffuse and a touch warmer.
I’m pleased with the result—maximizing the most of an otherwise ordinary sunset.
I did have some company while I was out there. I ran into a gentlemen cruising about Cedar Run Dock Road in his van taking sunset snapshots. We chatted for a few minutes, talked about good spots, a sunset a few days back, and then went on about our business. It’s always good to see other people out and about enjoying and capturing nature. It’s not a bad way to pass the time.
I had every intention of shooting with my ND filter today. I even got so far as to spending the greater part of my sunset shoot one 300 second photograph at a time. After cursory glances at my LCD I was pleased with the exposures rolling through. It wasn’t until closer inspection—after I was packing up my gear—that I noticed the litany of light leaks scattered about each photograph. Looking at the images back home on the computer revealed even more frightening results. It was so bad you could actually see the entire reflection of my convex lens in each picture. It was almost immediately that I knew where I went wrong, I loaded the filter onto the mount in the outside slot instead of the inside slot. A rookie mistake. One I will not make again. The added spaced allowed the light to bounce wreaking havoc with reflections.
Rewind back to sunset, where I didn’t have the benefit of a large display and well-informed hindsight, I quickly set up shop so I could test my now filterless lens to ensure nothing funky was going on with my glass. Sparing no haste I composed the shot above and fired off seven bracketed exposures. Not a bad way to turn the shoot around, and I made a mistake and learned.
Capturing a moment — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 50 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Yep—
This is what I’ve been waiting for. The perfect storm of a snow covered marsh, expressive clouds and an explosion of color. The occasional visits of the Polar Vortex this year have served to paint the most dramatic skies; and tonight just may have been the best of all. I shan’t distract you from the photograph with any more words and I hope you enjoy.
Thinking about tomorrow — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 50 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Here’s my sunset shot from yesterday—I was out for an evening of dining and drinks in Atlantic City with friends celebrating a birthday and was unable to post. A good time was had by all.
This was taken on Cedar Run Dock Road and I’ve composed a photograph from this very location before. While the colors weren’t as explosive as they’ve been other times this winter, the cloud definition was intricate and brooding, teasing topside color that was just out of reach. With about 20% less cloud cover and the sun would have gotten below the cloud deck and painted the sky with its gifted hand. Alas it wasn’t meant to be.
I opted to cross process this image, which is already a composite of 7 bracketed exposures, smoothing out the image with a calming blue tone. It more fit the mood of the blue-grey day I was seeing out there on the marsh. Snow is coming and the sky was letting us know.
