Chasing sunrises

Despite the dark and dreary weather at present, one of the compensations of this time of year is that, sunrises occur at a reasonable hour and when they do occur they can be spectacular.

As a part-time hobbyist photographer, actually getting out and taking sunrise photos presents some challenges.

 Firstly this can generally only be done at weekends and even then I have to work around the family commitments. The weather unfortunately rarely kind enough to meet with your schedule, so you can get into the frustrating situation of driving to work through fantastic sunsets, only to find them disappear once the weekends have arrived.

As a consequence I spend a lot of the week studying weather forecasts hoping  that the weekend weather will be good. However even if weather does look OK on the Friday night, there is no guarantee that this will result in a decent  sunrise. Over the Christmas holidays I made a special effort to get out to a sunrise. I examined the forecast, and it seemed promising therefore I rose early, crept out the house, climbed a hill in the dark and setup my camera and tripod.

The best I got for getting up on a cold December morning

However the sunrise never came. I could see the clouds clearing to the west, but by the time the sun started rising they were still covering the sun, so I got very little apart from cold hands.

Predicting a sunrise is an art form that so far I have failed to master. The 1st issue is predicting exactly what the weather will be at sunrise. This sounds straight forward, but most weather forecasts are incredible imprecise in this regard. You want to know what the sky will be like within that short sunrise period, but generally forecasts are only given within a 2 hour period. In the UK you can fit a lot of weather in 2 hours.

Secondly the actual weather is not the only variable you have to factor in. The quality of the sunrise is very dependent on the cloud layer and how high it is. The best sunrise picture have some cloud of them that reflect the morning sun. However you want broken cloud, otherwise the sun will never break through. Your general weather forecasts provide little info in that regard. They will say if it is sunny or cloudy and that's it.

In truth the best method to predict a good sunrise image is to get up about an hour before dawn and peer into the night sky and try and work out what is up there. This is easier said than done in the dark but normally you can see if any stars are showing.

Even then you can never be sure what you are going to get. Take yesterday for example.

The previous nights web weather forecast was unpromising showing cloud.  The local TV one more promising, but annoyingly imprecise, showing clouds maybe moving away just before sunset.  In the morning things did not look promising, but after staring at the sky for a while, I noticed the cloud had some breaks in it.

In fact it was what is called a mackerel sky, which is actually a fantastic cloud for sunrises.

Unfortunately that left me with a dilemma and with sunrise approaching in 45 minutes little time to do much about it.

Since day was a work day in theory I should be making my way down the motorway at this time, but fortunately I have flexible working hours so I can adjust when I start. Even so, it is not something I do lightly. But things seemed to good to miss. So while there was a chance I decided to go for it and i set off to a spot I had staked out a few weeks earlier (only to return 5 minutes later when i realised I had not packed my tripod)

One of the other issues with sunrises and sunsets is where to see them best. Obviously sunrises happen everywhere, but to see them at their best you somewhere with few obstructions like buildings or trees.  Being high up is good, but if there are no hills around you want somewhere flat. I personally think the best sunrises are where there is water to reflect off. Unfortunately being as far away from the coast as is possible in the UK,  the sea is generally out, so instead I look for lakes, ponds, rivers or canals. You also want the water to be flat and calm on the day.

You also need to work out where the sun will appear. If you are going to a river or canal obviously you want the sun to appear up or downstream top get the best reflections. There are quite a few apps that allow you to predict when and where the sun will come up, however I like to use a website called suncalc to try and work out where best to stand.

Like I said I already had a spot in mind. There has been some extensive flooding recently, and where  the canal meets the river had caused local flooding with wide stretches of flat standing water which was in the perfect place to catch the sunrise.

Or so I hoped. In truth I had not been back for 2 weeks, and there was every chance that the water had drained off, which was why I was so desperate to get down there.

Also there was the little matter of getting there. This involved driving to the nearest car park, putting on my wellies(much better and quicker than boots for this kind of thing) and walking the 1/4 a mile or so to the spot. Obviously sunrises do not wait for anyone so it was a rush to get there and setup. It also meant I had little time to find a good spot and setup the kit


But in the end it was all worth it. The sunset was a stunner, I got some good shots and even managed to get some pictures of a group of Goosanders for a bonus

The sunrise in all it's glory

The added bonus of a group of surprised Goodsander's hiding on the canal

So what have i learned...

Well firstly always make sure your camera kit is set to it's default state (Exp Comp 0, Focus Mode, Exposure Mode etc) that the battery is charged and lens are clean. When you are on a time schedule you don't want to be thinking about this while setting up. As it was my 1st few shorts were using spot metering which meant they were darker than they should of been.

Secondly never assume from the previous night weather forecast that a sunrise will good or bad. You sometimes need to take a hunch or chance. Sometime it won't come off, but when it does it will be worth it.

As an addendum, I must heartily recommend local photographers Steve Cole website. He is taking pictures to the standard I would love to get too. He is also proving my adage that you don't have go 100's of miles to take stunning images.

50 shades of grey skies

Ah the British weather. The occasional photographers implacable foe.

Just when your appointments have been cleared, you have a thumbs up from your domestic boss, and you set out to some photogenic landscape location with camera in hand, it is almost certain the time that the weather gods will turn against you.

This being Britain, you expect little in terms of good weather and it does not normally disappoint. But is it too much to hope for a small patch of blue? Some fingers of light poking through the cloud? or at the very least heavy thunder clouds with dramatic contrast?

Apparently it is. Because too often in these situations you end up with the sort of grey background which you could use to set your white balance by (if it was not for the continual drizzle associated with it)

Someone's who makes their living through photography may just shrug there shoulders, hit the hotel bar and wait for conditions to improve. But for those of us who have to sneak their photography out between busy lives, there is nothing more disheartening to wake up and see another rain washed grey sky. All we can do is grit our teeth and hope something will come out of the day, or at least something that is capable of being salvaged by the patron saint of average photos, St Photoshop of Adobe

And so it was that I went on my first ever canal trip. I dutifully perused the weather forecast and realised that unless a mix up of  Michael Fish proportions had occurred, the many shots I envisioned of gaily coloured narrow boats reflected in water set against an azure background were going to be severely curtailed.

The plus side of these situations is that they force you to be test your limits. Yes you would rather be under a clear blue Nordic sky, but you are here, you have a camera and it is up to you to try and make the best of it. As it says in the Faulkener's  novel Moonfleet,  "Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima jactura arte corrigenda est" (Translation " As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws"). Which should probably be the motto of occasional photographers everywhere.

The danger in these situations is that you give up photographing and resort to snapping everything that moves in the hope that something, anything will come out, even by accident.

Now photo's are digital, the cost of this is small. However in days gone by with film there was always the danger of wasting £5 on developing 36 shots of a flat featureless landscape or 24 pictures of an out of focus Mallard. The main danger now is only to your pride and self esteem.

The important thing however is taht you are there with camera in hand. No, the chances are that they will not be ranked highly on the next club competition (unless the theme is average photos taken on a grey, wet weekend), but the ones that show some any ember of promise can be used as lessons in the future on what to do when inevitably this situation arises again.

Even the ducks had boots on