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Woke up very early so headed out to the beach at Surfers Paradise for a sunrise session - a little cloud on the horizon but nothing too interesting.

I wanted to include some of the towering monstrosities perched right on the beach.

The following is about half an hour before sunrise (4:57AM) so we have a nice long exposure. The lighting and white balance is as shot - the beach is incredibly well lit by strong floodlights all along the beach blasting out to sea - even when I first arrived in the darkness of near total night a torch wasn't necessary even at the waters edge.



The dark band of clouds across the horizon muffled most of the sunrise (it was a non event really) so I spent some time trying some self portraits with the wireless remote



Feedback welcome

Remorhaz wrote:Woke up very early so headed out to the beach at Surfers Paradise for a sunrise session

Ohh..how convenient

There are elements to the first that I like, but i think its poorly composed - yeah thats a big call given i was not there etc, however, its one of those frames where the horizon smack in the middle just does not work for me.

Now, onto teh good news crop this biatch from the bottom and a bit from the top to get 1/3 land and 2/3rds sky and you have a cohesive image where ones eyes flow from teh left to right thru the image.

There is alot to like on the second shot but with one glaring issue (in my eyes anyway) ya facing the wrong bloody way everything leads to the right of teh image but your staring off at the half nude girl in the ocean? (oh wait thats just my imagination..) ok.. staring off at the sun then, which btw is out of the frame

anyway hth

biggerry wrote:crop this biatch from the bottom and

Or better yet, replace 'r' in crop with 'l'.

I agree with the croppage.

#2 is tricky and I don't think works as a portrait per se. There is no connection from the subject to the viewer etc so all is lost. I am not sure of the overall feel of this one.

the pano crop on the first will enhance the image no end, try a 16:9 or even go cinematic 2.39:1

biggerry wrote:

Remorhaz wrote:Woke up very early so headed out to the beach at Surfers Paradise for a sunrise session

Ohh..how convenient

You know it was

biggerry wrote:crop this biatch from the bottom and a bit from the top to get 1/3 land and 2/3rds sky and you have a cohesive image where ones eyes flow from teh left to right thru the image.

surenj wrote:I agree with the croppage.

Geoff M wrote::agree: the pano crop on the first will enhance the image no end, try a 16:9 or even go cinematic 2.39:1

Thanks Guys - went for a straight 2:1 pano and...

surenj wrote:

biggerry wrote:crop this biatch from the bottom and

Or better yet, replace 'r' in crop with 'l'.

??? did you mean 'h' not 'l'?

biggerry wrote:There is alot to like on the second shot but with one glaring issue (in my eyes anyway) ya facing the wrong bloody way everything leads to the right of teh image but your staring off at the half nude girl in the ocean? (oh wait thats just my imagination..) ok.. staring off at the sun then, which btw is out of the frame

surenj wrote:#2 is tricky and I don't think works as a portrait per se. There is no connection from the subject to the viewer etc so all is lost. I am not sure of the overall feel of this one

Thanks Gerry/Suren

There were two nude girls...

I actually took quite a number of takes like this - ones closer to the water (no tire tracks) and ones here with the tracks - some with me close and some further away more to the middle, some looking straight out to sea, some at the sunset (like the one above) and some looking towards or behind the camera and some even looking to the right of frame.

My fear was I'd be in too much shadow given the sun was on the left and I didn't have a reflector, etc - however I PP'd the very next frame (because I'm lazy and I could just easily copy the all the PP from the above image to this in one go in Lightroom and then just do a little more enhancing and shadow recovery on my face/body... and so...



How do you feel about the crop at the top - did I go too tight with the 2:1 crop and get too close to the building - should I go more 16:9 and have more room at the top (and I've even got a touch more at the bottom available)?

Remorhaz wrote:Thanks Guys - went for a straight 2:1 pano and..

looks heaps better, even taking another 10% off the bottom would not hurt, but nonetheless, a vast improvement.

Remorhaz wrote:There were two nude girls...

lets not go there..

biggerry wrote:looks heaps better, even taking another 10% off the bottom would not hurt, but nonetheless, a vast improvement

Thanks Gerry - how about with me looking forward? any better?

Remorhaz wrote:

biggerry wrote:looks heaps better, even taking another 10% off the bottom would not hurt, but nonetheless, a vast improvement

Thanks Gerry - how about with me looking forward? any better?

weeelll... how do i say it...you ain't no claudia schiffer

but, yes, it is better, still not as good as it would be if you were facing the buildings and definitely no where near as good with those nude girls in teh frame...but yes..better.

in all seriousness, yes better.

biggerry wrote:

Remorhaz wrote:

biggerry wrote:looks heaps better, even taking another 10% off the bottom would not hurt, but nonetheless, a vast improvement

Thanks Gerry - how about with me looking forward? any better?

weeelll... how do i say it...you ain't no claudia schiffer

but, yes, it is better, still not as good as it would be if you were facing the buildings and definitely no where near as good with those nude girls in teh frame...but yes..better.

in all seriousness, yes better.

For the first I would shave off above the shadowline at the bottom... and I think it may be a little too tight above the towers (not sure if you have anything to play with there.
For #2 I'm thinking you'd either need to be looking straight down the tracks as if looking at the vehicle that made em or back at the towers along the tracks in the opposite direction either way 'might' provide a firmer context.

As for the nude girl idea... thinking we better organise some studio work to get that outa 'someones' system

biggerry wrote:weeelll... how do i say it...you ain't no claudia schiffer

What!!! - I'm crushed!

in all seriousness, yes better.

Mj wrote:For the first I would shave off above the shadowline at the bottom... and I think it may be a little too tight above the towers (not sure if you have anything to play with there.

Thanks Mj - the very first image is the full frame. But in the pano crop I've moved up a little to just above the dark shadow which places the top of the pano crop nearer the top of the full image

For #2 I'm thinking you'd either need to be looking straight down the tracks as if looking at the vehicle that made em or back at the towers along the tracks in the opposite direction either way 'might' provide a firmer context.

As for the nude girl idea... thinking we better organise some studio work to get that outa 'someones' system

Both awesome (a very much overused word these days), especially #2. I would crop away the buildings and see how that goes. Excellent self portrait.

As for 4.57am, I didn't know such a time existed!

ozimax wrote:Both awesome (a very much overused word these days), especially #2. I would crop away the buildings and see how that goes. Excellent self portrait.

Thanks Ozi - tried the buildingless crop and wasn't really feeling it

I did try a different crop however (and tidied up the masks a little and a few other minor touchups)

Mj wrote:As for the nude girl idea... thinking we better organise some studio work to get that outa 'someones' system