Posted by Jason Taylor on August 11, 2009 at 1:08 PM
I haven't posted here in a while, but I caught a great sunrise this morning that I thought would be worthy of sharing.
Posted by Jason Taylor on August 11, 2009 at 4:15 PM
I posted this on another photo forum and the photo was criticized for being "underexposed". While I realize the foreground is quite dark in the right front, this criticism surprised me. IMO, exposure is a subjective thing when it comes to sunrises and sunsets. Each sunrise/sunset takes on a character of its own. I personally prefer darker shots that emphasize color, reflection and subtle detail. That was my intent was here. This was shot about 45 minutes before the sun actually broke the horizon. Standing there, the water was virtually black to my eye. This was bracketed too - one stop above this one and the richness of the yellow and orange highlights, as well as the detail of the rain falling from that cloud, all but disappeared. No color correction was applied here at all. The only PP was a slight straightening of the horizon and a small amount of bottom was cropped.
I'm interested to hear what you all think.
Posted by Charles Opper on August 11, 2009 at 9:27 PM
I think artistically, the darkness serves its purpose for the feel you are trying to convey. I would be interested to see more of the sunrise on the left side of the frame, but at the same time, leaving the subtle detail in the middle third of the image. Composition wise, that may or may not have worked for your situation. Also a small crop of the bottom I think would work too in highlighting the color but still keeping the darkness. Overall, I like it.
Posted by Jason Taylor on August 12, 2009 at 8:56 AM
Thanks Charles. I went back to the raw file and reworked it, lightening just a tad, and cropping a bit of the dark from the bottom and emphasizing the left side a bit more. Panning any farther left than this would've put a ton of ugly clutter in the frame. I'll repost the new version, and a few more from the same shoot soon. Thanks again.
As this was bracketed I would be tempted to merge this shot and the lighter one together to get detail back in the dark areas whilst keeping those lovely colours. It doesn't have to be a huge amount but more would definitely help I think
Discussion
4 repliesI'm interested to hear what you all think.