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Last week I went for a sunrise shoot at Minnamurra River/Stack Island. I got up at 5:30am and drove down to Minnamurra headland to be greeted by an incredible sunrise. It was 7 degrees! So happy I came 1 hour early as this is what I saw.

Would love to know what you think.



The colour really was this vibrant. The image was begging for a 7x16 crop so It's wish was granted. The ripples in the sand got my attention straight away and then this little glowing puddle that leads your eyes into the incredible reflection.I used a 100 LED torch to bring out the puddle and make it glow. I like the symmetry of it all with the two vertical poles and the straight horizon. Some may argue that the positioning of the island isn't on the rule of thirds intersections but honestly I think this works and is a case were it can be broken. Wanted to get something different to what I have taken before and have seen taken here.

I hope you like it as much as I do. It is my favourite image out of them all.

Camera - Nikon D90
Exposure - 42
Aperture - f/11.0
Focal Length - 16 mm
ISO Speed - 100
Filters - Lee ND Grad 0.6 and 0.9 Hard
Light - 100 LED torch



This composition is a bit different to the other one but I liked the weeds popping out of the water and the rock covered in oysters in the foreground with once again the wavy sand. I used the 100LED torch to boast the foreground a bit but only for 2 seconds so it wouldn’t be evident as it has a different colour temperature (more cold). This was a bit later and the sun wasn’t reaching the t0p clouds anymore but the lower clouds were very bright and glowing red.

Camera - Nikon D90
Exposure - 4
Aperture - f/11.0
Focal Length - 16 mm
ISO Speed - 100
Filters - Lee ND Grad 0.6 and 0.9 Hard
Light - 100 LED torch



The rocks in this photo are a bit underexposed but it sets the point of interest to the sky and its amazing colour. I had a 0.6 and 0.9 Lee ND Hard Grad stacked yet the foreground is still a bit underexposed. I like the swirly motion in the foreground water too with an incoming wave in the distance.

Camera - Nikon D90
Exposure - 0.6
Aperture - f/10.0
Focal Length - 11 mm
ISO Speed - 100
Filters - Lee ND Grad 0.6 and 0.9 Hard



I walked around the headland along the rocks and climbed up to this spot (very slippery rocks). Interesting clouds and colour with water movement but not sure if I like the composition that much on the left. Would have liked to take it a bit further to get more of the right but was a 70 degree rock face. Was very hard to set the tripod as the rock face was about 45 degrees and it was sliding down.

Camera - Nikon D90
Exposure - 0.6
Aperture - f/10.0
Focal Length - 16 mm
ISO Speed - 100
Filters - Lee ND Grad 0.6 and 0.9 Hard



My toes felt like they were going to fall off but yet it didn’t stop me from going into the water to get as low as possible to emphasis the moment. The timing in this shot was essential and as I was using a timer I had a press it 2 seconds before. I like it as the water in the bottom is perfectly still and then all this turbulent water is coming to disturb it.

Camera - Nikon D90
Exposure - 0.167 sec (1/6)
Aperture - f/7.1
Focal Length - 11 mm
ISO Speed - 100
Filters - Lee ND Grad 0.6 and 0.9 Hard

Thank you
Chris

Hey Chris, these look premi on my phone but will have another look.

For your cold toes, I'd suggest a paid of fishermans boots with spikes to keep nice and toasty even in winter.

What you need to work on is trying to remove telltale signs of the grads. One method is to bracket and later manually combine the exposures to bring out some detail on the cliffs.

Kudos for being the early bird.

Are you comfortable with the sea? If not you should take other people with you are safety.

Chris, these look really good. I think you need to invest in a remote release do you can free yourself from the PITA that the self time can be.

I love the colours and the motion that you have captured in these. The last three are my favourites!

surenj wrote:Hey Chris, these look premi on my phone but will have another look.

For your cold toes, I'd suggest a paid of fishermans boots with spikes to keep nice and toasty even in winter.

What you need to work on is trying to remove telltale signs of the grads. One method is to bracket and later manually combine the exposures to bring out some detail on the cliffs.

Kudos for being the early bird.

Are you comfortable with the sea? If not you should take other people with you are safety.

Yeah was thinking about getting them or even just gumboots.

Yeah I know but if I was going to spend all that time editing I may as well not use the grads and just bracket for the sky and land and combine it and in the last three images this would have been better but in the first two I like the island and headland as a silhouette.

Yeah the sea doesn't scare me and also I did surf life saving. But the main think is I am sensible where I go and see the wet marks on the rocks. Although having someone else with me would be great but no one wants to come haha.

Thank you for the comment Surenj

aim54x wrote:Chris, these look really good. I think you need to invest in a remote release do you can free yourself from the PITA that the self time can be.

I love the colours and the motion that you have captured in these. The last three are my favourites!

Thank you Cameron

Haha yeah I have like 3 of them but just find it a hassle when I'm running away from a wave to hold and also plugging it up. Should just use my infrared one for this. Was in a rush to get these last ones before the light got bad, as I had to walk a bit from the first location.

Hi Chris - really nice work.

I also like the first - beautiful image - however I think it might have been better without the poles?

In the second which is also very good - perhaps taken from slightly to the right and a little closer to the waters edge perhaps.

Grad are super tricky with those annoying rocks sticking above the horizon

Remorhaz wrote:Hi Chris - really nice work.

I also like the first - beautiful image - however I think it might have been better without the poles?

In the second which is also very good - perhaps taken from slightly to the right and a little closer to the waters edge perhaps.

Grad are super tricky with those annoying rocks sticking above the horizon

Thank you Rodney.

Yeah I agree that the poles are a bit distracting but loved the foreground so couldn't get a different angle although it would be easy to pp out, people who live here would know I did it straight away.

I took it a bit further back because I wanted to try and get the oyster rock in the bottom right hand corner but probably was better as you say to get closer to the shore, as the rock gets lost and doesn't do that much to the image and it does look a bit too messy.

Excellent colours. I like the first one best
for the unusual patterns.

very nice specially the first one, for me the posts don't distract I see them as a frame (for the rock) within a frame (whole picture)

zafra52 wrote:Excellent colours. I like the first one best
for the unusual patterns.

Thank you

lightning wrote:very nice specially the first one, for me the posts don't distract I see them as a frame (for the rock) within a frame (whole picture)

Thanks. I agree with you too.