Friday 3 June 2016

The first in a new series

My Friday Favourites, take one!

I want to start a new series on my blog, sharing some of my favourite images that I've taken over the last few years and exploring how I captured the images. I will call this series, My Friday Favourites.

I chose to start with this image. Here is a little background information. I captured this way back in 2011. I had just broken up for the Christmas holidays from university that same day, I literally hopped off the train and drove down to the harbour.


I arrived at the harbour at around 4pm and took a walk around the area before finally setting up my camera at this view point. I had set up my shot with a different composition but when I accidentally zoomed out I saw this wonderful perspective and something about it caught my eye. 

My camera set up for this image was my Canon 7D with my Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 lens. I used a tripod to support my camera to avoid camera shake. On the front of my camera I placed an ND filter.

I really wanted to experiment with long exposures, I wanted to be able to capture smooth milky water and beautiful movement in the clouds. However, the only way I could do this was to wait until the Sun had set otherwise my shutter speed would be too fast.

As the Sun started to set on the horizon I dialed in my settings, f14 at 30 seconds ISO 100 and waited. I waited and waited and waited for my moment. The sun descended beneath the clouds and I clicked the shutter button. 30 seconds later I reviewed, capturing a few more frames, some brighter some darker.

When I reached home, I uploaded my pictures, sifted through them to find this beautiful image.
I love the composition, the dark strong figure of the tree centered in the frame, with other trees in the background. I also love the colours, I have been asked if I tampered with the colour but I can confirm those are the colours straight out of the camera.  

This is one of the pictures I'm most proud of and this spot has become a favourite of mine to shoot at.