Dunsbrough Dawn

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys

I have just returned from a 4 day break, camping close to a beach some 2.5 hours down the road from where I live. I got up early one morning to capture the attached sunrise. As we live on the West coast sunrises over water are difficult to find, this is one of the few bays in Western Australia where it happens.

The image is uncropped and apart from the deletion of a few dust bunnies and a bit of sharpening is as captured... Any thoughts will be appreciated, I have tried to keep it simple...

DON

1D4 | 70-200 F4 IS @ 89mm| 1/250 @ F14|ISO 100|tripod

[Dave Mills]

Hi Don, beautiful light and technically well handled. The above repost is where I felt the strongest compositional elements were positioned.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Don,
Hmm.....It first appeared the image needs a cCW rotation......but aligning the sun with the reflection in the water....appears to be the shoreline going away. Dave's crop concentrates the color and comp in the interesting areas.....a nice idea is to go tighter when there aren't that many dramatic clouds or the outside edges start to lose color and interest......Dave's crop solves that. Not always the easiest to do in some locations......so I applaud your efforts on at least trying!

[Robert Amoruso]

Don,

I like what Dave did in the recrop.

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys

Thank you very much for the critique from 3 of the best in the business. Wow, you don't get that sort of service every day...!

David,
I did play around with the composition and take many shots. Some were much tighter and similar to your repost, but this one had the gull in the light reflection and as you pointed out interesting detail is lacking in the scene so I was after all I could get. In hindsight I should have considered a crop on this. I was a little concerned that it may have been considered under exposed, but that seems to have passed the test. Does anyone make a circular ND gradient filter to help with the sunrise/sunset shots??? Have I just invented something?

Roman,
The shoreline was indeed 'going away', in fact it is a bay heading off to the right and returning top of shot..

regards

DON

[Chris Korman]

Hello Don, I am not sure about the composition as a lot is not going on on the left side of the image, perhaps, moving down the beach (to the right and trying another framing to offset the boat from the sun a little more. I really like the quality of light on the scene, but I think the composition needs work.

[Don Railton]

Thanks for your suggestion Chris, I should have tried this although I fear it may have diluted what little subject interest there was. I was impressed with the light but struggling to find things to put into the composition and I believe in hindsight that Dave's suggestion of going in tight would have worked best for me... Thank you again for your input..

DON