Dawn and Dusk

The plan for this Saturday was to get out and shoot sunrise and sunset shots. Therefore, it was up at 6am to get to Keel Point near Newcastle (Co Down). This involved a fair old walk from the car park to the part of the beach I was aiming for, in the dark and and cold. Reached the beach just after 7am and had time get set up. A big learning point was setting the camera's white balance. My first few shots were very "blue" in tone and setting the white balance to "cloudy" was crucial in bringing out the orange/red/yellow colours of the sky. Thanks to Debbie for that tip!

The tide was going out and from a previous visit to the beach I had noticed lines of wooden posts running out into the sea and had planned to use these as a focal point for some of the shots.

I've just re-read this post and realise that the two shots (above and below) need to be spaced out a little as I don't think they look right sitting so close together. Hence this inane but brief paragraph.

All in all, very happy with how these turned out. After being focused on the sunrise, I then had the wit to have a look around me and the beautiful scenery of the Mournes at that time of the morning.

So, sunrise worked well. After an enormous veggie fry and a spot of lying about, it was out again at 3pm to try to catch the sunset. The plan was to head up into the Mournes and shoot sunset somewhere like Spelga Dam. Sadly, the weather decided not to play ball and the clouds and lack of light defeated me. However, I did have my backpack full of filters and other gear from this morning and wasn't going home empty handed. This was taken at a little bridge near Rocky Mountain with two ND filters and an exposure of 1 minute. Came out very Zen in the end, with some nice detail in the rocks and that nice milky quality to the water. I think this is the first time I've managed this effect - quite pleased even if I didn't get the sunset.