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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Blue Hour Sunrise | Assateague Island, Virginia
I can’t tell you how many times I tried to time the flash of the lighthouse just right, but I stood there shooting for a solid 15 minutes before I got a flare from the light that I liked. For those of you familiar with Assateague Island, you’ll understand what kind of a feat that is when you’re being mauled by mosquitoes! This is the Assateague Island Lighthouse just before sunrise on the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. The ocean was to my back, and immediately following this shot, I wheeled around and quickly got set back up to shoot the sun rising over the sea, which you can see here. This was part of my much beloved morning shoot with my mom and dad. Fun times! Not much to say, processing wise, on this one. It’s a single, long exposure- tripod mounted and remote triggered. Minimal work in Photoshop to clear up a little color cast in the upper clouds. That’s it. What you see is the same beautiful sight I saw that morning!
©2011 Zach Frailey
Black, White & Sunny | Cape Lookout, NC
I recently took another ferry ride over to the Cape Lookout lighthouse to shoot it against a dramatic sky, but once again my plans were foiled. It seems like there are never clouds in the sky over there. Good for vacationers, but not for me. A few weeks ago conditions were similar, but I was unable to get a single usable shot because of unforeseen debris on my sensor. All sunflares were useless. This time, sensor cleaned, I shot a few brackets against the spotless blue sky. Those of you who are into HDR know that it’s pretty pointless to try to HDR a sky like this, but I was doing it for the flare. In fact, the lighthouse and the rest of the image are a single exposure masked in. It was just ‘ok’ in color, but I found the black and white conversion really brought out the diamond pattern on the lighthouse and drew a lot of attention to the sun rays pointing at it. The plain blue sky was just over powering, and that’s why black and white worked best.
The Shot: 3 exposure HDR merged in Photomatix. Middle exposure sky and lighthouse were masked back in using photoshop. Finishing touches were made using Nik’s Color Efex and black and white conversion was done in Nik Silver Efex Pro.
©2011 Zach Frailey
