There’s a temptation to eliminate the photographs that don’t look exactly the way you expect the subject to look.
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.
Especially in sunrise photography, sometimes your best images will be the ones that look more exotic or more out of focus or more dramatic than the actual real thing.
There are actually two processes:
Copyright (c) 2008 Carol Chapman
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Take a look at the images in the Edgar Cayce Calendar. This is the Divine in Nature: with Inspirational Quotes from Edgar Cayce 2009 calendar. Notice how in so many of the images, there is a sense of depth because the images include something in the foreground and the background.
Don’t you love the photograph of that little lightning bug peering over the edge of that huge magnolia petal? That’s the photograph for the month of May 2009.
Even in this photograph, that contains only one large flower, some of the petals are in the foreground and other are in the background giving this photograph depth.
Copyright (c) 2008 Carol Chapman All Rights Reserved
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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
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Take a look at the photograph of Mount Rainier which I used for the month of February in the 2008 Edgar Cayce Calendar. The many people who “oo” and “ah” when they see this Mount Rainier photograph, likely do not analyze that one of the reasons the photograph is so special is because of the silhouetted dark trees in the foreground.
Copyright (c) Carol Chapman 2008 All Rights Reserved
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Copyright (c) 2008 Carol Chapman All Rights Reserved
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Here are a couple more suggestions for creating depth with something in the foreground. If you’ve seen my Edgar Cayce Calendar, you’ll notice that there are three sunrise photographs included . . . for the months of January, March and November in the 2009 calendar.
Here”s the link:
http://www.EdgarCayceCalendar.com
In the January photograph, you can see that I used shore grasses in the foreground to create an amazing sense of depth. The dynamic sunrise with its reflection in the water adds to feeling of depth.
In the March photograph, a sailboat and pilings create depth. Without them, the photograph would look flat.
The November photograph is enhanced by the upturned boats and trees in the foreground. I also used flash to illuminate the leaves on the ground in the foreground to create more depth.
Copyright (c) 2008 Carol Chapman All Rights Reserved
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Yes, if you’re there at the right time in the right place, you can encounter a wonderful sunrise to photograph.
You can also enhance the photograph by including something in the foreground, for example, a sunrise in the sky and craggy rocks with mountains in the background, a fisherman with the ocean in the background or some tree branches with a waterfall in the background.
The sense of depth you get from having something or someone in the foreground brings the photograph alive.
Copyright 2008 Carol Chapman
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I don’t have to say to be careful when taking photographs of the sun, do I? After some deliberation, I believe it needs to be said:
DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN.
I know this is difficult, especially when the sun is the main character in your photograph. And, I must admit, that I sometimes don’t follow my own advice. Afterwards, I worry about sun damage to my eyes.
You can get severe damage to your eyes if you stare at the sun, even when it is low on the horizon.
That’s another reason a cloudy sky makes a good sunrise photograph: you are protected from damage to your eyes.
Copyright 2008 Carol Chapman
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To get the light right in your photograph, you need to vary the exposure. This is quite easy to do. By “Vary the Exposure” I mean, “How to get darker and lighter photographs” when taking sunrise photographs.
Most of us have cameras with automatic built-in through-the-lens exposure meters. By this I mean that most of us have cameras that allow us to take photographs without having to manually adjust settings on the camera. It just all happens automatically for us.
However, you may find it very frustrating when you take a sunrise photograph and discover that the photograph you see displayed on the viewing screen on the back of the camera does not look anything like the image of the sunrise you see with your eye. It may be too dark or too light.
The reason for this is that the camera’s exposure meter is usually set to make its light measurement at the center of the viewing screen. Therefore, if, when you’re framing up the picture on the viewing screen, you put the bright sun in the center of the viewing screen, the exposure meter will think the whole picture is very, very bright or even too bright. Your photograph will be very dark.
If, when you’re framing up the picture, you have the foreground, which is dark, in the center of the viewing screen, the exposure meter will think the whole picture is very, very dark. Therefore, the camera will overcompensate and will lighten the dark foreground. You will get a very light photograph.
Knowing this, you can play with the exposure of your sunrises by centering the image at different places. You can make dark, light, and medium light-intensity photographs by changing the place where you center the image.
Copyright 2008 Carol Chapman
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Here’s another very important suggestion for getting fantastic sunrises with your camera:
The reason for being absolutely prepared as you begin to take your photos of that fabulous sunrise is that the sky will change by the second. If your media card is full, your batteries depleted, or your film not loaded, you may be sorely disappointed when the sky blazes with color or rays stream out from the sun for a second or the sun breaks through the horizon.
Everything progresses so rapidly during a sunrise!
Copyright 2008 Carol Chapman
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