I tend to think of my ‘photography firsts’ to occur in increments that are commensurate to how long I’ve been shooting.  For example, I remember the first time I really got the correlation between Aperture, ISO, and Shutter Speed.  It was pretty early on in my photo-taking adventures, around 1998.  I remember the first time I did a long exposure and actually understood what it really meant to keep the shutter open for that long.   Also, a bit further down that road.  And how could I forget my first HDR experiment <cringe>.  That was about two years ago.  So, I found it very peculiar that the first I experienced a few weeks ago happened this late in the game.  That was shooting my first sunrise.

Now, the reason that it took this long really boils down to one very strong excuse – I love my sleep.  It comes so randomly and with such scarcity that when I do get it, I hold onto it with my talons.  You really need to pry it from me.  My first sunrise was actually supposed to have occurred a few weeks earlier than it did, but was canceled last minute by me after I started feeling under the weather.  But this time, I was resolute in my efforts to see the day actually begin.  I had planned out the sunrise shoot with my two good friends, Chris Lazzery and Richard Williams.  Neither Chris nor Rich are strangers to early-morning photo escapades so I knew that I was in good hands.

The plan was to crash at Chris’ place, get up around 3:30AM and drive to the Portland Head Light, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, to capture what we were certain would be an awe-inspiring sunrise.  From there, we would make our way into town for some breakfast and follow that with a day of shooting around Portland.  We would then head over to Old Orchard Beach, about a half-hour or so from Portland, to shoot the sunset.

So, picture if you will, me being awoken from my slumber on Chris’ floor by Rich, in a disproportionately calm voice, telling me that it is 4:10AM.  My hope is that Chris’ discovery of how to properly set an alarm will come to him in the same bravado as when the cavemen first discovered fire, namely with a lot of grunting, jumping, and flailing of the arms.  I only hope to be there when it happens.  The nuances of the anti-meridian and post-meridian are understandably hard to grasp, which is why I was able to forgive Chris for setting the alarm for 3:30 PM.  It was one of those things that could happen to anyone, I guess.

We somehow managed to get dressed, pack the car and even brush our teeth by 4:30AM and were on our way.  Because of the delayed start, we had to revise our plans to get to a destination that would afford us enough time to scout, prep, and shoot the sun rising.  The decision was that we would shoot Old Orchard Beach for sunrise because we could make it there with enough time to get properly situated.

Now, the saying that I often hear is that with sunrise, the light gets progressively worse and with sunset, the light gets progressively better.  Perhaps that is true but what I learned was in that short amount of time, as the light of the sun starts to break over the horizon and the colors in the sky start to form this beautiful gradient of blue to orange to yellow, it is simply breathtaking.  There was something very rewarding and magical about seeing the sun come up while standing on a beach.  It offered me unique challenges in terms of what to meter off of and how to frame the shot effectively.  The timing of seeing my shots and taking them also proved to be a challenge because I could see the light change, and got progressively worse, with every second that went by.  I am sure that a lot of you read this and go, ‘Duh!’, but understand that this is totally new to me, so fumbling around was all part of the learning experience.  And I loved it.

True to form, once our light quality turned flat and harsh, we made our way from Old Orchard Beach to Portland for some amazingly delicious diner breakfast and a day of shooting.  The city of Portland offered so many different photo opportunities, especially on an early Sunday morning with the temperature at about 25-degrees Fahrenheit.  We had the city pretty much to ourselves which made meandering around random streets easy without having to carom off of surrounding pedestrians.

About an hour before sunset, we made our way to the Portland Head Light, a regal structure that sits perched and attentive.  Chris, Rich, and I went straight to our routine of scouting for our shots and eagerly waiting the approaching Golden Hour and sunset.  While the original goal was to photograph the sun breaking the horizon with this beautiful lighthouse in the foreground, the sunset did not disappoint at all.  We were all able to find unique vantage points to photograph the lighthouse and walked away assured that we had some real keepers to process.

What I took away from this experience was that, in most cases, real effort has real payout.  Because I got my junk in gear and made it to this sunrise, I walked away with some of my favorite shots that I have ever taken.  I even got to spend a whole day shooting with two of my good friends.  Toss in a sunset shoot for icing and what you are left with is a great day.  It certainly won’t be the last of these types, I promise you that.

Cheers,

Brian

Technical Notes

I spent the day shooting with my Canon 5D Mark II.  While I had a lot of my gear with me, I spent most of the day switching between the lovely Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L, the Lensbaby Composer, and the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM.  I did a lot of tilting and shifting at Old Orchard Beach because of the way it was laid out.  I found it pleasing to keep the structures that were sitting atop the wooden beams tack sharp and change my plane of focus to blur out the horizon in the distance.  I felt that it gave the shots a dreamy feel.  For the sunset, I mounted on my B+W 3.0 10-stop ND filter onto the Canon 24-70.  This allowed me to grab a few four-minute exposures without blowing out any details.  Exposing for this long also provided an awesome ghosting of the water as it crashed over the rocks in the foreground.

Last week, I met up with my friend, Jason Sundram, for a long-overdue evening shoot in Somerville.  The weather had been very agreeable and I was lucky enough to finish up my work at the office early so I headed over to Davis Square.  Killing time isn’t nearly as bad when you have your gear with you.

Right away, I noticed a nondescript door across the street from my parking spot with a sign that read ‘Bowl Haven’.  It just looked like it didn’t belong there and was enough to make me want to check it out.

Walking in, I was totally psyched to see that the place was totally empty except for me and the dude working behind the counter.  Thankfully, the dude was very cool and let me have at it with my camera and tripod.  I wasn’t sure how long I would have the lanes to myself, as I was told that there was league play scheduled, and that people could begin showing up at any time.

I ended up having the place to myself for about an hour and managed to get a decent number of brackets to tone map and process.  I was very also very glad to have had my X-Rite ColorChecker Passport with me to correct the horrible yellow cast that appeared on all of my RAWs (I have an upcoming blog entry planned around the benefits of the Passport and HDR – Stay Tuned).  I was also lucky enough to grab some shots of the adjacent billiards room before anyone started playing.

After Jason and I met up, we walked around a bit, took a random turn into a dimly lit alley and grabbed a few more shots.  In the end, I reminded myself that sometimes you can find the best shots when you’re just looking but maybe not seeing.

Cheers,

Brian