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Midsummer at latitude 53º north means that the sun rises at 4.45am and to the northeast.
Every year I plan to take a day off work around this time, consulting the weather forecast in order to pick a day when I'll actually see the sun rise, rather than the more normal bank of cloud that being by the sea usually engenders.
Rising at 2.30am and driving for an hour and a quarter gets me here, to Penmon Point on the island of Anglesey, just off the North Wales coast, at around 4.15am. Just enough time to find a good viewpoint and set up my camera to capture the sun as it breaks the horizon behind Puffin Island, about a quarter of a mile offshore.
The lighthouse makes for an obvious focal point for my composition, with seaweed covered rock giving an interesting foreground, and the wonderfully snaking old concrete path winding though the scene right from my feet to the lighthouse beyond.
Anticipation builds as the sky lightens to the east, heralding the rising sun. I spend the last few minutes re-checking my gear - tripod firm (check), head locked (check), aperture set (check), hyperfocal distance set (check), autofocus and IS off (check), horizon level (sort of!), lens and grad filter clean (check), grad filter correctly set (check), mirror lock up on (check), nose wiped (check). Really, the amount of detail you have to pay attention to in order to take a photo can be quite something, but it's what separates a photo from a snapshot.
OK, here comes the sun! Take a test shot and see how the histogram looks - not bad but the sun in the frame is throwing the exposure off a bit so make a correction and shoot again. In fact, try and bracket as many exposure levels as possible for future blending in PhotoShop.
My fingers are a blur as I adjust - shoot - adjust - shoot for 30 seconds. 30 seconds is all it takes for the sun to rise over Puffin Island to a point where further shooting is pointless, and I bask for a few minutes in that post-shoot glow of satisfaction at a job well done before turning my attention away from the sunrise and to other scenes that lay before my waiting lens. And the best part is - I've got all day!
Filename - lighthouse 17.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 17mm
Exposure - 1.3secs @ f16, ISO100
Location - Penmon Point, Anglesey
This image - 640x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - ND grad filter used to balance exposure.
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