Thursday, September 1, 2011

VanWagner's Beach Sunrise

My adventure in photography didn't start last winter, but it got a kick start then.  We had just purchased our new camera, and I met a nice gentleman who was photographing song birds in Niagara Falls (previous post). Well, after a few attempts, we finally met for a Saturday of picture taking.  While arranging a start time, Dave jokingly challenged me that, if I was a real birder, then I'd be on location at 6:30 in the morning to be ready for good light conditions.  After seeing that sunrise coincided with this hour, I decided to try my hand at capturing the sunrise, knowing that the sun would be rising across Lake Ontario on VanWagner's Beach.  The goal for the rest of the morning was to go to a few locations near there which had shown promise, as far as I had understood, from an OntBird email list I get updates from.  The promise of lots of shore birds sounded like a good Saturday morning of photography.

That morning, the moon was in its "just waxing" phase, and the silver crescent sliver greeted me in the dark as I headed out from home at about 5:30am.  Here was the scene that welcomed me as I headed to the beach, a slight warm breeze, and soft waves the surroundings.

A long exposure softens the water to appear as fog.

Again, a longer exposure leaves the dark, hard rock
appear to sink in  mist.




Although the oranges and reds are disappearing as the sun rises, it's interesting how exposure changes affect the colours of the captured photo.

Purples and blues.

Well, that was the start to the rest of the morning.  Sunrise is something you don't have long to "play" with, as it won't pause for you.  I had in fact missed the "magic moment", the sun breaking the surface as I was out scouting our location before Dave arrived, thinking the sun was behind the clouds on the horizon.  Looking back, I saw the molten ball rising above the water, and sprinted back to re-setup and capture only a few shots, past the best moments in time.

Too late...

I'll try and post some of the birds we got to see in the near future.  Life has been rather busy with many obligations.  Posting has not been able to make it easily on to the list with limited time available.  More coming soon.

3 comments:

  1. great shot Brian. I guess I should have gotten up early and joined you for some sunrise shots

    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Melinda and Dave!
    Dave, looking forward to doing it again somewhere sometime in the fall.

    ReplyDelete

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