Sunrise Photography: Your Photograph Is NOT Going to Look Exactly Like the Actual Sunrise and That’s OK
You’ll wear yourself out if you try to get your photographs of the sunrise to look exactly like the sunrise you’re viewing with your naked eye. For example, last week, I was taking sunrise photographs of the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean at the beach on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. There were these beautiful dramatic clouds. And the sun peek over the horizon through the clouds. The sun was cherry-red colored.
Now, you don’t often get a cherry-red colored sun. And, I wanted to show that beautiful sun in my photograph. However, every photograph I took showed a white sun on the play-back screen of my digital camera.
Why was that? I believe it is because the sun is so very bright, even when it’s red-colored coming through all that atmosphere at the horizon, that it photographs white–it’s so bright.
So, should I have deleted all the photographs I took that morning? No way. There were many gorgeous photographs. Instead, I dealt with the actual photographs when choosing which ones I might use.
Even if you’re taking a portrait, don’t expect the photograph to look exactly like the person sitting before you. After you take all your pictures, choose the one(s) that look the best—not necessarily the ones that look exactly like the real image.
That’s how to you get great pictures . . . choosing from what you have.
Copyright (c) 2008 Carol Chapman
