Having risen at an unusually early hour for me I travelled the 45 miles and walked smack bang into my first mistake. I had explored the area in daylight and when I arrived there were the lights around the docks at Harwich in all their glory and beautifully supported by the lights at Felixstowe on the opposite bank of the estuary. No chance of photographing the sunrise. Next time I will check the area more carefully and as far as possible in the same light conditions.
Fortunately I know the area well so drove a little further down the coast and happily found somewhere that had no lights out to sea in the direction I wished to shoot. There were some street lamps within about 40 yards and they did effect the final outcome as their reflection in the water gave the sea an orange colour that looked most odd at the bottom of the image. I set up my tripod with camera attached and started with it at the top of some steps so that the street lams were slightly behind my position. The water was high and I made my second mistake of assuming it was high tide! Fortunately there was a noticeboard nearby and the local council had provided a table of the times of high tides so I discovered there was still another 2 hours before high tide was reached. Not wishing to drown in the pursuance of my art I retreated to a safer position.
I took the first photograph at 0644hrs. (camera was set for all shots at AV - aperture value). Shots were taken at regular intervals of about 5 minutes. The ones chosen for this blog are representative of the changes.
f11 30.0 seconds
As can be seen the sky had begun to lighten although what I actually saw seemed to me to be much darker.
The second photograph was taken at 0728hrs
f11 0.3 seconds
There had been a gradual transition between the sky colours shown in this photograph and the first one. Again it did not seem as dramatic as this to my eyes and certainly it seemed darker but this was probably due to the lighting adjacent to me from the street lamps.
The third photograph was taken at 0745hrs
f13 1/25
There was a noticeable change in the colour of the sky even to the naked eye particularly in the appearance of the orange banding immediately above the horizon.
The fourth photograph was taken at 0755hrs
f13 1/100
The sun was just beginning to appear above the horizon when this photograph was taken. As can be seen the colouring of the sky had changed giving a softer hue to the colours.
The fifth photograph was taken at 0801hrs
f13 1/125
The sun is almost completely over the horizon. I cropped this image to place the sun away from the centre of the image to offer a better composition of the elements of the sky, sea and sun.
The final picture was taken at 0912hrs
f13 1/160
The sun is now over the horizon providing the reflection in the water and catching the light cloud cover.
In choosing the site for the series of images I chose the sea deliberately as I wanted to catch the change in colours in the sky without concerning myself with the effect say on a landscape. I felt that this way I would have a greater feel for the effects of the sun rising when capturing the dawn light across the range of different landscapes I photograph throughout the Course.
I was fortunate with the weather and had followed local forecasts for a week prior to choosing the day. One aspect of weather I had not anticipated too well was the wind that was blowing strongly at the time. Inevitably this had an effect on the camera even though it was on a sturdy tripod and was noticeable in the images taken with long exposures.
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