For me, photographing a sunset is often a process, an opportunity work the scene over a period of time and frequently results in a series of images. Such was the case with last week's ' sun down ' and a number of others from the session. Then I teased that this week's post may provide a look into the process behind it all.
In this instance things started early in the day when I checked weather apps for wind predictions. The previous day had been mostly devoid of wind, leaving waters calm. It was predicted to continue through the day and instead of repeating the previous morning's calm water outing, I chose to go search for fall colours fairly certain that I could catch sunset later.
Late in the afternoon, I checked on things down by the shore and began by making a few images of the interesting skies with clouds reflecting on the smooth surface of the bay. It continued as I kept an eye on the changing skies, light and position of the sun, exploring different foreground elements and positions. In all. I shot 45 frames and a screen capture of the RAW files from my Lightroom library will give you an idea of the complete range and how it evolved.
When I shoot sunsets I use daylight white balance to keep things consistent throughout the shoot. With the cloud cover during this shoot, a cloudy white balance would make images too warm for my liking. I always shoot in RAW file format and could change white balance in post if I chose or needed to do so.
I mostly shoot in aperture priority mode and use exposure compensation to capture the light levels that I am seeing. As the skies darken, I dial in -1/3, -2/3 and at times -1 EV as the situation dictates. A case can be made for manual exposure and I have on occasion worked in this mode. I just seem to be more comfortable with aperture priority at this point, your mileage may vary.
To explore compositions, I work my way along the shoreline to positions that allow placing the sun centre frame, right third of the frame and also explore with the sun high, middle and low. Options with different foregrounds follow next. I use rocks with sunlight glinting of their wet surface, rocks visible through the clear water and explore leading lines and "s" curves along the shoreline to the extent possible. I've also made a mental note to get in the water and explore vantage points yet untried. Obviously not all options are successful, but the process can have a flow that helps in finding something different. At an unfamiliar location there can be more capture frames and with a familiar location such as out cottage shoreline there can be less.
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| ' calm & composed ' |
Those interested in seeing all of the images that were selected and processed can check them out on my flickr page beginning with this one and scrolling through the half-dozen or more that I've posted.
Before heading in when I was done, I decided to set up a remote shot with me in the frame and I think it worked out OK but those with a sharp eye will note that I've done some distortion correction from the RAW file seen in the grid above ... such is the case with low POV ultra wide angle shots.
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| ' curtain call ' |
Let me know if you found this post of interest and I may just work on something similar in the future.
DJE
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