February Sunrise #3...and I got a Cover

[Jose Suro]

http://jsuro.smugmug.com/photos/260344448_9Lcb2-O.jpg


Hi All,

Took this image while on a 10 day bird shoot with some friends at Viera, Florida. I stayed on the beach and got up early every day and kept an eye for sunrises. And yes, I did get wet!

Now to the cover. I was found on the net by Morris Publications, who publish the Where guest books. These are hardbound museum quality coffe table books that you see in most upscale hotels. They did some comps for the clients and I got the cover for the 2008 book http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/emoticons/smiley.gif. The book is a limited edition of 14,000 copies for Southwest Florida. It is a shot I took at Palm Island in 2006.

You can see the cover here:

http://www.josesuro.com/gallery/1138678_nKNKC/10/259815939_ebpSP/Original

Thanks for looking!

Best,

Jose

For this image:

D300 @14-bits - 12~24DX @ 12mm - 1/4s @ F16 - ISO 100 - 3-stop hard GND

[Gavin Spooner]

Jose:

wow and congratulations.

cheers
wembley

[David Kennedy]

Jose,
The cover image is way cool, but there is something about this one that just doesn't quite work.
I think it's in part that the angle is a little too high, but it's also the way the lines are working against the way that the eyes are naturally drawn to the sun (behind the clouds). The surf comes from a completely different angle, making the object in the sky feel dissonant to the rest of the image. Perhaps if the view was panned more to the right--and you'd taken another step back--the rocks would have anchored the foreground a bit more, and it would make less of a different that the surf was from an angle different from the sun because the surf would act more as a "layer" than as a guide for the eyes. I hope this makes some sense--at the moment I'm having difficulty expressing these ideas!

[Michael Pancier]

congrats !!! beautiful work

[Paul Marcellini]

Don't know if I congratulated you on the cover on FM but anyways, congrats. I do remember commenting on this one. I still like it. I think the tension that bugs David, works.

[Jose Suro]

Thanks for commenting David. The shot was taken 12-inches from the sand and considering the surf that's as low as I could safely go :). I think the image is about how the 4 rocks were differently covered by the water, from completely rushed to dry. And it looks a lot better at bigger sizes.

Thanks again!

Jose

[David Kennedy]

I took another look and what I was trying to suggest is that the right half of the image is very strong, but the left half takes away some of the interest for me. A vertical to square-ish crop might actually be something to consider.

Cheers,
David

[Robert Amoruso]

Jose,

I have been thinking about this one for a while and I understand what David is suggesting. First thing I did was take my cropping tool and crop out the bottom just below the diagonal wave and liked that. But having the FG allows a place for the printing to go so for a publication its inclusion was a good moved.

To me the diagonal wave carries the eye into the image and off again without terminating at the sunset which is to the left of the right edge. I capture a lot of beach sunrises and I generally don't get a lot where I like the wave interaction. And that is not meant to be critical of this image. I am just saying that you may think this is a simple image to make and it is not.

Anyhow, I do like it and congrats on getting it published. I am confused about one thing. You say it was made in 2006 but with a Nikon D300 that came out end of 2007.

[Jose Suro]

Jose,

I have been thinking about this one for a while and I understand what David is suggesting. First thing I did was take my cropping tool and crop out the bottom just below the diagonal wave and liked that. But having the FG allows a place for the printing to go so for a publication its inclusion was a good moved.

To me the diagonal wave carries the eye into the image and off again without terminating at the sunset which is to the left of the right edge. I capture a lot of beach sunrises and I generally don't get a lot where I like the wave interaction. And that is not meant to be critical of this image. I am just saying that you may think this is a simple image to make and it is not.

Anyhow, I do like it and congrats on getting it published. I am confused about one thing. You say it was made in 2006 but with a Nikon D300 that came out end of 2007.

I guess this post got a bit confusing Robert. The cover is a different picture and you can see it on the link I posted with the text - and that one was taken with a D200. Sorry about that!

Here's the actual cover:

http://www.josesuro.com/photos/259815939_ebpSP-O.jpg

Best,

Jose

[Gayle Clement]

I love that cover shot. The crop that Robert suggests makes a huge difference in the posted photo and agree with him.