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Portfolio 14 of 80

Photographing the Sunrise

I nearly killed myself getting this shot and then messed it up anyway. Fortunately I ended up quite liking it and have included it in my portfolio as I wanted to explain how I took it.

Nothing great here, anyone can take a sunrise shot, and not surprisingly you simply have to get up early!

I had just bought my first digital SLR and desperately wanted to test it in all circumstances. We had been getting some great sunrises so I planned to get up early and get to the beach in time.

I ended up being late and it looked like being another beautiful sunrise. I threw the gear in the car, tripod and all and shot off down the motorway. Half way to the beach I wanted to be at, I noticed the sun was already rising so I slammed on the brakes and exited at a place called "Funny Beach" in Marbella.

I ran past some bewildered fishermen, plonked the camera and tripod down and started shooting as the sun rose. There was even less time due to a bank of clouds just above the horizon.

When I got home I realised that the camera settings were all over the place. Normally I would have a small aperture and long exposure to blur the sea but with good DOF (depth of field), or set a higher ISO and have a fast shutter speed to freeze the sea and good DOF.

The camera was at 30th/sec at F5.6 which resulted in movement on the waves and a shallow DOF. The moral? As I explain quite a bit on my website, preparation for any shoot is paramount. Without it, the chances are you will be disappointed. The reason I like this shot is for the colours. There was very little post-processing required and I kick myself for not getting it spot on.

Still...I was keen, and have since taken many more sunrises with the correct settings!