1) James talks Chris through filter choice for the sunset shot.
2) An ND grad and polariser are the only filters required for a
successful shot. 3 ) Chris magnifies the image on his monitor
to confirm sharpness. 4 ) Exposure is assessed in LiveView
using the live histogram on Chris’s Canon EOS 7D.CHALLENGE3:
THEPI ER ATSUNSET
Withstomachsfull,weambledbackdown
tothebeachtocapturea classicshotof
CromerPierat sunset.Oneofthegreat
thingsaboutCromer,despitebeingonthe
eastcoast,is thatit’soneofa handfulof
locationsthatcanbeshotsuccessfullyat
sunset;in fact,Cromercanbeshotat both
endsof thedaydueto itsposition.
Wewerebothawarebeforemeetingthat
sunsetwouldbeat hightide,whichwouldn't
necessarilystopusfromphotographingthe
pierbutcompositionalopportunitieswould
beseverelylimited.Whenit’shightidethere’s
onlya merestripof pebblesalongthebeach
closeto thepier,offeringjusta fewmetres
betweentheseawallandthetide,sowe
positionedourselvesherebecauseit was
bothsafeandallowedusto explorea few
differentcompositions.
Atthisstage,thesunwasdropping
fastandtherewasa largecloudmoving
outtowardstheseafrominlandthatwas
beginningtopickupsomewarmcolours.
Withthecompositionallimitationsin mind,
I suggestedthatChrisbeganbygoingfor
a widershotusingthetideasa lead-inline.
ThisapproachallowedChristocapture
thewholeofthepierandthedynamic
movementofthetide.
ChrisaskedwhetherI wouldusean
NDfilterforthistypeofshot,andI saidI
wouldn’tnormallybecauseit wouldlimit
theexposuretimetolongerexposures
andsmoothwater,butasthelightlevels
reducedthiswouldoccurnaturallysohe’d
beabletoexperiencea rangeofshutter
speeds.I did,however,suggestusinganND grad to maintain sky detail, and since
this would be Chris’s normal approach,
he’d already attached a hard ND grad to
work with the flat horizon. Chris shot within
the restrictions of this section of beach
for about 20 minutes, moving closer and
further away from the tide to try to capture
as much variety as possible in what was an
extremely limited situation.
As blue hour approached, but with colour
still in the sky, we hopped over the groyne
next to us into an even smaller section of
beach that wasn’t touched by the tide.
While the area was definitely much tighter
to move around in, it did allow Chris to
adopt a much neater composition of the
pier. Chris had been 'eyeing' up this area
for a while so immediately knew where he
wanted to set up and shoot from.
Chris maintained his ND filter set-up
but with the light now fading fast we
were quickly moving from exposures
of two seconds to exposures of around
30 seconds long. This quickly produced
a range of images from long-exposure
images that displayed texture in the water
to those that were smoother and calmer- and Chris took advantage of every
opportunity that came his way.
“CromerPieris a fantasticsunsetlocationandwe
were extremely lucky to experience favourable
conditions, albeit with a high tide. Chris took a
logical and progressive approach to the
challenge, starting wider and moving closer to
the focal point as time went on. So, despite the
limitations of the high tide, this provided a logical
way of working that allowed him to ensure he’d
explored every compositional option available.
The resulting images show a range of shutter
speeds and capture the changing light as the day
moved from the bright colours of sunset to the
more subdued tones of blue hour .”CHALLENGE 3 Pro verdict
12 34The (^) Photo Workshop
74 Digital SLR Photography December 2019