Sunrise at Spring Point Light

[bentyson]

I would like some input on the composition of this photo. I like the sky but I'm not sure about the position of the Quay-wall and the Lighthouse. Would it be better to have the Quay-Wall coming into the frame out of the right corner?

Nikon D5000
18-55mm lens at 22 mm focal length
White Balance = daylight
Shutter Speed = 0.3sec. on a tripod. @f11
ADL= H+
ISO 100

[Corey Thompson]

I'm of the opinion that if you ask enough people, you will always be able to find something to criticize about a photo. Point being is that this looks like a fantastic photo with really good detail in the sky. I personally think the position of the lighthouse is fine.

If you had to find something to criticize I'd say that the lighthouse is underexposed and the land is in a silhouette. If everything were in a silhouette that would be fine. Otherwise if you were to try to properly expose the land and light house, you would blow out the sky.

[Krusty79]

I like the sunset colors you've captured. It's a good shot, but something about the foreground bugs me a little. The arrangement of the rocks is not as clean as I would like. I think it's the rocks that extend horizontally towards the left, away from the lighthouse. For me, it interrupts the flow in the foreground instead of leading my eye to the sunset. I don't know if the Quay-wall is the walkway leading out to the lighthouse, but since it is pointing diagonally through the image, I agree it would help if it were placed more to the right in the shot.

To eliminate the distraction, I would have walked out towards the lighthouse and taken the shot with the lighthouse as a silhouette against the sunset. That would keep the distant island in view and eliminate all of the foreground rocks near the lighthouse. I may be the only one who feels that way about the foreground, though.

A graduated neutral density filter might have enabled you to correctly expose the sky and ground in this image.

I would also like to see this in landscape format.

[illuminatingenigma]

Nice picture. If I were to take the same photo, I would have not included so much of the blue sky at the top of the photo. If the lighthouse was a touch higher in the photo it would have been nice.

[EOBeav]

Yeah, beautiful colors, but your subject (the lighthouse) seems to be lost in all of it. If at all possible, it would be good to see this taken from a lower angle to see it placed more prominently in your image.

[milosh]

@ bentyson: While I agree that the sky in your photo is nice and interesting, I would like to see less of it. Right now, when looking at your photo, I perceive two areas of interest, one being the lighthouse and other lower elements, and the other upper part of the sky. Actually, upper part of the sky is not so interesting and I think your photo would benefit if you cropped it so that your horizon is a on the lower third of the photo.

That would leave you with the problem of the wall going opposite of the sunset, but you could solve that by flipping the photo horizontally. It just depends if you are willing to alter the photo that much.

I would also like to see a bit more detail in the lower section (the wall primarily). I guess you could brighten it a bit if you wanted. I could do these edits to illustrate what I'm talking about but I'm not using my computer right now.

[bentyson]

Thanks to all who took the time to look at my sunrise. I think that including less of the blue sky would be an improvement. As to the line of rocks extending to the horizontally to the left from the quay-wall. It was low tide and I didn't want to crop the frame further which would have left the Lighthouse sitting alone. I wanted the quay-wall as a leading element. I took a few frames from ground level which placed the Lighthouse as a silhouette in the lower left of the frame but I didn't use any of them because it didn't show enough expanse of the bay. As for walking out the the Lighthouse,the thought did cross my mind but strictly because of safety reasons I didn't do it. The quay-wall is composed of large blocks of granite. It's surface level varies as much as a foot and has gaps of over two feet. In order to get to the Lighthouse fifteen minutes before sunrise would mean walking it alone in very dim light. I didn't want my wife reading about me in the newspaper.

I was trying for a more silhouetted look because I thought it would direct more attention to the sky and clouds. I tried brightening the foreground but didn't think it looked realistic for the time of day.

This was my first try at a sunrise. I intend to go back as soon as it stops raining and use your advice to improve the photo. If I get lucky I might catch a high tide. Actually I was surprised that no one thought the Lighthouse was out of focus. It looked that way to me anyway.

A few things I would change: remember to turn off VR when my camera is on the tripod, use auto-focus instead of setting the focus to infinity( I find that I can't focus as well as the camera can) and spot meter on the brightest part of the sky instead of using matrix focus.