Ever tried shooting a sunset (or sunrise)? Okay, let's face it - no one wakes up early... so we'll stick to a sunset.
You know, you are sitting there overlooking some pond, lake, whatever... The sun is dropping fast, and the sky is alive with all that beauty God put up there.
And there you are... you followed the rules for landscape photography...
You have your tripod, you turned off your flash, and you even wait for that magic moment that occurs a few minutes after the sun has actually set and the sky is just screaming with a level of awesomeness...
So what's the problem? Oh yeah, did it occur to you that there are no less than 10 other people out there shooting the same sunset? Okay, so probably 4 of them have a "point-and-shoot" camera so the sky lights up for that brief second of camera flash... a temporary beacon for the alien landing party! Four other people think their cell phone is enough of a device to capture that moment and remember it (heck, it'll even end up on Facebook so everyone can say "Oh, that's great - you should shoot my wedding"). If you like sunsets that were colored by Ray Charles... I'm just sayin'...
So you may have only 1 or 2 people "following the rules" for sunsets...
Well... here's a neat concept... don't shoot the sunset... well, not directly...
See the world has all this awesome color in it (especially during that magic sunset moment).
The picture above was shot on top of Cadillac Mountain in Bar Harbor, Maine (great place by the way!). And I broke all the "normal" rules. The sunset was to the right of this picture... but it was boring. There were literally 20 people up there snapping away... flashes blinding God. I happened to spot the clouds, turned the tripod and started shooting. I love this picture. No one else that night has this shot! No one! Score one for me (I need all the points I can get!). The sky is so smooth looking - and those darn clouds ruin it!!! I love it!
So what's the point? If everyone is looking right, what is going on to the left? If 10 people are shooting from eye-level, what happens if you drop down to your knees and shoot? See the world in a different way!
This picture (above) was shot at Niagara Falls (on the US side). The falls are somewhere behind me a few hundred yards as I was shooting this... There were hundreds of people at the falls snapping away... all that white foaming water. You see about 3 seconds of one of those snap shots and you're done. I like the feel of this one - gives a bit of suspense to the feel if you ask me.
One more sunset... no one was around? Why? The sun had "gone down" and it was cold out... I want to get a spoon and eat that sky!!!
- jermz
No comments:
Post a Comment