Just another sunrise

I started this blog in 2015. Since then my frequency of writing has ebbed and flowed, as has the readership (obviously).

I write about what I want to write about, not driven by the stats (how very old fashioned of me) but I do look at how the overall readership flows month to month (not day to day as this way stress lies).

Looking this morning I noticed that the view and readership this year has surpassed all other years except that first year. If you think about it, that makes total sense as back then I was swimming against the tide, writing about mirrorless and fujifilm way before mirrorless took over the world.

That’s only 8 years ago! (I had been using these cameras for a few years already and had actually been writing about them since 2013 on my now deceased website blog).

All that is by-the-by and is not about a “just another sunrise”.

This morning (Wednesday 15-11-23) I headed out about 6:45am for a 7:17(ish) sunrise.

Walking along the beach, looking for a place to observe the rise I noticed the starlings were just about to leave their overnight roost on the pier (as they do just before every sunrise). Deciding to use the ultra wide on my iPhone, shooting in the Lightroom Mobile App (pro-mode, slightly underexposing), I waited.

Although the cameras built into phones are quite brilliant and clever, as soon as you look at the images large on a calibrated photo monitor it becomes obvious how limited they are.

With the under exposure (or exposure for the highlights), there was a fair bit of noise in the shadows which the Ai deNoise in Lightroom did a great job of removing.

I then ran the images through DxO NIK to restore some details in the shadows of the pier and tweak the contrast.

I continued wandering with 5 minutes before the sun was due to be visible and found a calm rock pool in front of the advancing tide.

Crouching down, I waited with the 14mm on the X-T3 which was set to underexpose using the Velvia film simulation to bring out the colours. I now regard Velvia as being too strong in the contrast and colour department for most of my work (something we did not worry too much about in film days). Unlike most of my professional work where the aim is 100% fidelity, here my aim is to produce pleasing images, which will both soothe my soul and produce great prints.

At this location I went from the 14mm to the 150-600 and then the 35mm to vary the view, getting some more cloud detail (which I will probably reference in a painting).

Processing these images, I ran the RAF files through PureRAW to ensure the best possible detail in the shadows before tweaking the contrast and raising the shadow detail in DxO NIK.

My soul fed, I started to wander back. I could not help stop under the pier to make some images of the warn sun against the supports and nylon ropes caught on them.

These were all shot on the 35mm and processed the same way as the previous batch.

Finally I walked the 10 minutes to home, another coffee and edit.

Not a bad way to start the day!

Until next time.

J x