Hands up if you always wanted to try something in your photography exploits and you haven’t done it because you’re worried about what people will think of you?
I’ve always wanted to do a sunrise shoot, and I’ve never done one!
I KNOW! It’s an embarrassing admission, but I’ve always been worried about getting into trouble. Someone thinking I was doing something suspicious, that it wasn’t safe in the dark, blah, blah, blah. They sound so completely irrational now reading them here as I type them, but at the end of the day, aren’t the majority of our fears irrational anyway? Come on, back me up here!
Anyway, I digress! I woke up inexplicably at 5:04 this morning, and thought, this is the day. Bugger the fear! I stood at my window looking up at the stars hoping that the clouds would stay away as dawn broke on the beach.
GOODBYE FEAR!
I pulled on some jeans and shoes (down jacket, polar fleece neck gaiter… it was freezing!), packed my gear and got in the car anyway. I got to the beach a little before Golden Hour began, and practically had the beach to myself. I soon noticed that the couple of people already walking the beach, couldn’t care less about what I was doing.
As I stood on the beach, I realised that I really didn’t have time to focus on what complete strangers (who I’m never going to see again) were thinking about what I was doing.
I kept walking along the beach as the sun began nudging the horizon and compositions started to appear. Seagulls that were dawdling on the shoreline took off in the direction of the slither of sunlight that gently arose over the sand dunes.
I remembered just how beautiful nature is at dawn, took a deep breath and soaked it all in. When you are surrounded and immersed in nature in its rawest form, you gain a little perspective.
Capturing the rising sun was easier than I thought with the Fujifilm X-T3. The new boost mode made shooting in the varying low light a dream. Granted, I had to bump the ISO, but only to 1600 on a couple of shots.
The sun came up really quickly so I shifted my focus to shooting what the evening tide had left behind on the sand. I have to admit that I think I am developing a mild seaweed portrait addiction. There is something utterly fascinating about it. I love how there is an infinite number of shapes and compositions with how the seaweed finds its end on the shore.
Does anyone else find seaweed as equally gorgeous? Sorry, I digress, but you can see from these shots how effective the new autofocus covering the entire sensor is. It’s really beautiful being able to take up close portraits of inanimate objects and have each and every detail in focus. It’s hard to think of anything wrong with this camera. I’m hoping to process some 4K video taken at the beach over the next few days, so stay tuned!
Anyway, enough seaweed, for now. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!
