Tag: Sunrise Photography

Spring Road Trip 2019 – Bisti – Day 6 – Sunrise

My son and I returned to the “Scalloped Rocks” area of Bisti for sunrise photography on day 6 in Bisti March, 2019.  This morning’s shoot was frustrating for me.  I had a malfunction with my remote/intervalometer that resulted in the camera shooting continuously, just as I was composing what I thought would be my best shot of the morning.

Another of my shots, that I thought would be really good, turned out to have much too shallow a depth of field.  It looked good in my quick review in the camera LED screen, but apparently, I did not inspect it closely enough and maybe my fingers were so cold at that time that I was not using my best judgement.

Sunrise Day 6 March2019
A pre-sunrise shot in the Scalloped Rocks area of South Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 24mm, f/11, 10s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik color Efex Pro 4.

A shot across the area just before sunrise is shown above.

Sunrise Day 6 March2019
Sunrise in the Scalloped Rocks area of South Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 28mm, f/11, 2.5s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik color Efex Pro 4.

And another pre-sunrise shot from a different point of view is above.

Sunrise Day 6 March2019
An accidental abstract. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 27mm, f/11, 0.5s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik color Efex Pro 4.

While my camera was shooting continuously, due to the remote release malfunction, there were numerous images captured, which were all trash; but I decided to make use of the one above, since it has interesting abstract photographic features, which I do not think I could have purposely created.

Sunrise Day 6 March2019
Sunrise light, clouds and silhouetted rock forms. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 1/6s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik color Efex Pro 4.

I finally captured the image above, after managing to remove the remote release with my fumbling, numb fingers on this cold morning.  Valuable time was lost as I dealt with the equipment problem and I think I missed the best pre-sunrise light composition here; but at least I got this silhouette of a window with the sunrise sky in the background, before the sun was completely up.

Some days are like this,

Ken

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 3 – Sunrise

There is an area just to the southeast of the Bisti south parking area that we had previously ignored, thinking there was probably nothing of interest there; but we decided to explore that area, anyway.  It was only a few minutes hike from the parking area, so we did not have to allow nearly as much time for getting to it.  We found canyons with numerous branches there to explore.

One of a number of canyons near the south Bisti parking area. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 24mm, f/11, 1/10s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

One of the problems with photographing in canyons is that large portions of them tend to be in shadow at both sunrise and sunset and the light in the canyons either later in the day after sunrise or earlier in the day at sunset can be harsh.

One of a number of canyons near the south parking area for Bisti Wilderness. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 22mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

For the shot above, I found a place to actually sit on a large rock and look down this canyon and wait for sunrise light. I have purposely left deeper shadows in the foreground to contrast with the early morning light on the background, with the dark bottom of the canyon and the walls of the canyon leading the eye towards the background.  The photo looks a bit dark in this post.  Click on the photo to see this image on Flickr, where a larger view will make it look much better.  Perhaps, I left too much shadow and darkness for some computer screen viewing?  My monitor is fairly bright and the image looks good viewing it in Adobe Lightroom.  But perhaps, I should re-visit the editing and bring up the shadow areas a little?

One of several canyons near the Bisti south parking area. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 24mm, f/11, 1/80s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

The photo above is near a branch in one of the canyons nearest to the south Bisti parking lot.  This shot is taken much later in the morning than sunrise shots are normally taken, but note the deep shadows on the east side of the canyon wall.

After our morning experience in these canyons, we decided that sunset might be a better time for photography here and to return to shoot here at sunset, which will be the topic of the day 3 sunset post.

Ken