Golden Hour Bridge Passing | New Bern, NC
This shot was taken just as the sun was beginning to set to my back. A really, really great golden light was cast across the bridge, which opened to let a sailboat through at the same time!
A little back story is as follows. My buddy Brad came to town to shoot the sunset with me. We met up at the park next to the drawbridge with plans to shoot the sunset from the observation deck of the bridge. I have never shot a sunset up there, but it has a high, unobstructed view of the Trent River with the sun setting right smack-dab in the middle of it. So we made our way up on to the bridge, at least an hour and a half before the sun would actually be setting. Brad brought an extra body and was going to set up for a timelapse of the setting sun. Cool!
After over an hour of shooting (it was now literally 10-15 minutes before the sun would set), the bridge operator got on the intercom. “All pedestrians need to vacate the bridge, ESPECIALLY THE TWO PHOTOGRAPHERS.” Now what was this all about? He returned to the intercom to tell us a boat was coming and no one could be on the bridge while a boat was passing. This is not true. There are cars stopped on the bridge when it’s open and I have been walking on the bridge when it is open. You just have to stop at the gate. Still, he adamantly motioned and told us to get off the bridge, “NOW.” We returned the ‘thumbs up’ sign, but he continued to gesture (to put it lightly) toward the end of the bridge. Maybe he thought we were giving him a different finger? I just figure we over stayed our welcome. We are, after all, photographers- we had to have been up to something….groan.
So we gathered up our stuff, Brad’s timelapse was mere minutes away from being cinematic gold, and left the bridge. As soon as we passed the last set of gates, the alarm sounded and the deck began to raise. It was about then that a friend of my Facebook page, Jared, arrived to shoot. We passed him on the bridge and the three of us hustled around the river walk and down to the area behind the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center just in time to catch this boat passing under the open bridge.
The last bit of day light was great, as you can see here. So maybe it was a blessing in disguise that we were kicked off the bridge. There is no way we would have caught that great golden reflection from up there!
The shot: Nikon D90, 8mm Rokinon lens, f/22, ISO-100. 2 exposures manually blended in Photoshop CS4. Finished with Nik Viveza and Nik Color Efex Pro.
Outside the Box
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This is a different take on the subject of yesterday’s Weathering Storms. As I find new locations and add to my Abandoned NC project, I have an increasingly difficult time deciding between processing and posting the completed image in color (as originally intended) or in black and white. Each image that I’ve completed resides on my hard drive in both color and black and white, by the way. I have decided to share this old boathouse, from a little different an angle, in black and white today. It’s a step in a different direction as I don’t share much black and white photography, but I feel that sometimes the lack of color can speak wonders of a scene. I’m interested to hear the feedback on this one.
The shot: Nikon D90, 18-105mm VR lens @ 40mm. Single exposure- f/16, 1/200 sec., ISO200. Edited in Photoshop CS4 with some Nik Color Efex tweaks, finished in Nik Silver Efex Pro for black & white conversion.
Riding Off Into The Sunset | Beaufort, North Carolina
I admittedly don’t spend enough time hanging out in the town of Beaufort. It’s a great historic little town with a lot to see and photograph. Like a lot of places like that, it took family coming into town to get us out there and exploring. After a failed attempt to take a ferry over to Cape Lookout (unseasonable warm + off-season makes things like that a little chaotic) we decided to visit Beaufort and walk around the waterfront and see what there was to see. After checking out some great little shops, we were met with a fantastic sunset over the Beaufort Inlet.
One thing that we all were delighted to see were the huge number of migrating birds flying over head and into the sunset. It was quite a sight to behold. Further up the waterfront, I put a longer lens on and was able to get some geese flying in formation behind the tower of a Hatteras yacht. It was a great end to a memorable day with my family.
The shot: Nikon D90, 18-105 VR Nikkor @ 50mm. Singe exposure, f/11, 1/200 sec.
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Marina Sunset | Morehead City, NC
On the first weekend in October, Morehead City hosts the North Carolina Seafood Festival. It is a huge event that attracts visitors from not only North Carolina, but all over the East Coast. On the day I visited, the crowds were enormous. It was hard to walk, let alone tote a camera, through the exhibit and food vendor areas. Toward the end of the evening, I found this quiet little area near the end of the Morehead City Waterfront to take a break. The sun was beginning to set over the line of sport fishing boats that are docked there and I thought this would be the perfect time to fire off some brackets. Due to the crowds and my laziness, I didn’t bring along my tripod. Luckily, there were many posts and fences to choose from to stabilize my camera!
The shot: 3 exposures, ISO-200, f/10. My standard HDR post processing: Merged in Photomatix Pro, Edited in Photoshop CS4 with Nik Color Efex and Viveza applied. Slight ‘Glamour Glow’ filter applied before saving to add realism and a calm feeling.
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Photo ©2011 Zach Frailey. Click on the ‘Licensing’ tab or shoot me a message about usage and licensing questions.
Sunrise on the Ada Mae | New Bern, NC
Sunday morning, I set out before the sun came up for a sunrise photoshoot. On my way, I noticed that the horizon was just beginning to glow just above the water and I knew exactly where to stop. I have been wanting to shoot this scene, but during the evening this is a very popular and busy restaurant however, in the wee hours of the morning there wasn’t a person to be seen. I set up the shot so that I could get the skipjack Ada Mae in the scene as well. The sailboat was built in 1915 and provides shipboard education now. She stays docked here beside Persimmon’s restaurant when not out on the Neuse River. I knew that the really bright light on the front of the building would make a great flare at a small aperture, so I composed the frame so that it would be in the upper right, with the approaching sunrise peeking into the lower left frame for balance.
The shot: Single exposure, f/13, 6 second exposure, ISO-200. A little Photoshop adjusting for color.
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