# Sunrise on Bolivar



## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

This morning I began my vigil at 4:18am. It was supposed to be 4:00 but you know how that goes. After charging and formatting everything last night it was pretty much grab and go. When I left the house there wasn't a cloud in the sky - not the best shooting situation. Made the 5:20 ferry over to Bolivar and thought to myself "why couldn't I be more of a morning person" as the sky began to lighten while I was still in Galveston.

Fortunately Horseshoe Lake is very close to the ferry landing on the other side. I was eager to see what kind of effect going from 17mm to 12mm was going to have. Unfortunately down there foreground interest is hard to come by, so I really had to rely on a dramatic sky to make it work. This was the best shot of the morning. Looking at my exif I was about 12 minutes from missing it...way too close when you drive from Friendswood.

It took a lot of post processing to make this look right. My only nit is the darkness of the midground marsh in the middle, but I also feel the image does not appear over processed, which is very important to me. So here's the first in a series for this thread. Hope you enjoy it. Double click for a larger version.

*Horseshoe Lake Sunrise 2453 - 12mm f/11 ISO100 exposures from 1/10 to 3 secs*


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## Donnie Hayden (Mar 7, 2005)

Wow! Awesome shot.


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## Charles Helm (Oct 22, 2004)

A very dramatic shot with great reflections interrupted by the foreground and midground elements. I especially liked this part:



RustyBrown said:


> but I also feel the image does not appear over processed, which is very important to me.


I know I sometimes have a problem knowing when to stop processing.


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## seawings (Aug 28, 2004)

Another great shot from you...I've alway loved your earlty morning water shots on Bolivar (the lighthouse and others). Great work!


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## Batboy0068 (Oct 10, 2006)

WOW that is great


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## MT Stringer (May 21, 2004)

That looks really good. I thought I saw a redfish tailing in the edge of the grass! 
Mike


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## Arlon (Feb 8, 2005)

Mike, I'm with ya. Everytime I get near the water that early in the morning I remember I have a camera about 9am... Maybe if I just left my pole at home. 

Beautiful shot. Clouds where definately on your side. Anyone that gets up at 4am on a saturday to take a picture deserves some cooperation from the forces of nature!


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## grayfish (Jul 31, 2005)

Awesome Rusty. Good to see you posting up images again.


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## Koru (Sep 25, 2006)

lovely image and post processing? i can see a little, but it sure looks so natural, as if my own eye had seen what you saw. thanks for sharing


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## Koru (Sep 25, 2006)

just a quick question... do you set your own ISO level or do you let the camera do it?


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## fishphoto (Mar 3, 2005)

Great shot Rusty! The colors are absolutely amazing. I'm off to 'Vegas in the morning for my annual week of "pro" corporate shooting. This is what I bought the D3 for(and what is paying for it) so I'm pretty excited to see how it really does in low light. Hopefully I'll have some time to get out and shoot on the strip.


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## Donnie Hayden (Mar 7, 2005)

Sounds like fun! Enjoy your trip.


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## Saltstalker (Jun 6, 2008)

Makes me homesick ! Beautiful


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## The Machine (Jun 4, 2007)

super pic


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## Gator_Nutz (Sep 27, 2006)

Great image Rusty. It looks like I'm standing right there with you. The darker marsh area does not bother me a bit as it looks quite normal given the cloud cover situation. I will be interested to see how it prints.


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## 15476 (May 15, 2006)

hope you don't mind mr.brown, but i set your picture as my desktop background. your signature shows up nicely to give you the credit. absolutely beautiful !


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## mastercylinder60 (Dec 18, 2005)

cool. i wish it was a little bigger.


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## Fisher Lou (May 16, 2005)

Fantastic photo. I have been there many times and never had a camera with me. I will have to make a special trip. Truly inspiring.


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## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

*Thanks all - stay tuned*

*Donnie* - thanks it's important to give most of the credit to the scene itself - I'm just a reporter.

*Charles* - my new mantra on post processing will be "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". The internet is filled with overdone HDR shots now on scenes that don't even need them. This is usually followed by a narrative of "this is straight from the camera" - whatever. Less is more (unless you need it! ).

*Seawings* - Thanks for following my work. The coast is a very untapped resource in my portfolio and I need to do something about that. The tradeoff in going so wide is that the lighthouse (which no one mentioned) is such a tiny component, but it's a little extra gem on the full sized version. Stayed tuned.

*MT & Arlon* - If it makes you want to fish then I think that's as big a compliment as I could get. I didn't take by gear because it was supposed to be SE @ 15 which isn't so good for Bolivar Flats. Gotta love good clouds.

*Grayfish* - Thanks for the support on everything.

*Karen* - I'm curious what part looks overprocessed (want to see if we agree). Keeping all my RAW files on this one and won't stop until it's perfect. I generally keep the ISO as low as possible, but that created problems on this shoot do to cloud movement. Next time f/8 to give me a little shorter exposure times.

*Brent* - You simply have to do some shots with th lights and th dancing waters. neon's a pain but if you bracket and underexpose enough ou'll get some killer stuff. I thought the AVN awards already happened? 

Of course *anyone* interested in a print or a particular sized wallpaper can drop me a PM. Time to work on the next shot.


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## Captain Mike (Nov 20, 2006)

Wonderful shot Russ. Glad you found your way back to Bolivar (and no fog this time) Beautiful colors and great composition...looks like your new setup is working well for you...


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## Koru (Sep 25, 2006)

RustyBrown said:


> *Karen* - I'm curious what part looks overprocessed (want to see if we agree). Keeping all my RAW files on this one and won't stop until it's perfect. I generally keep the ISO as low as possible, but that created problems on this shoot do to cloud movement. Next time f/8 to give me a little shorter exposure times.


thanks for the ISO comments. i haven't started doing things with ISO yet but am interested.

i'm not sure i'd quite call it over processed... but the bit that caught my eye that seemed not quite what i expected to see was the grass. i'm not sure if it was because of the dark area near the horizon that made it more obvious the grass was very distinct, or what, but it was that area that caught me a fraction off guard.

i quite like the sky... we often have dramatic sky here in NZ (because we're small and surrounded by the sea), so that does seem realistic.

where was the overprocessed area you thought?


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## stargazer (May 24, 2004)

Just beatiful Rusty....Love the composition and colors...Great Job.


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## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

Thanks all. Been meaning to get some more up, but real life got in the way on Sunday. I'll have some more up tonight. 

Karen that's the exact area that was bugging me. I should have burned in marsh in the upper right and actually taken the detail out and I think that would have worked.

In regard to the ISO there's not much that photographer's agree on, but I think all would agree to shoot the lowest ISO possible that will give you the dof or shutter speed you want.


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## Koru (Sep 25, 2006)

RustyBrown said:


> Thanks all. Been meaning to get some more up, but real life got in the way on Sunday. I'll have some more up tonight.
> 
> Karen that's the exact area that was bugging me. I should have burned in marsh in the upper right and actually taken the detail out and I think that would have worked.
> 
> In regard to the ISO there's not much that photographer's agree on, but I think all would agree to shoot the lowest ISO possible that will give you the dof or shutter speed you want.


yes, it's as if the detail in the marsh is fighting against the stunning sky in the opposite corner of the image for my attention. the grass appears more important and it shouldn't be. thanks for helping me to pin that down better Rusty.

yes i understand about using the lowest ISO possible. when i get the chance, i'm going to set up a photo and take several shots and see what the end result looks like with different ISO settings. i've noticed that in Manual mode i should be setting it myself, obviously - somehow i slipped from using shutter mode to manual mode lol


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## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

Well, sorry for the delay but by now you've probably figured out I've been working double time on this little hobby. So let's get back to the seashore...

These first two shots are similar in timing and processing to the first. Obviously they're shot in portrait format. As I mentioned before this was to try to gain some foreground interest. I might try this again with a lower POV, but I'll have to give up some reflection area to do that I'm I'm just not sure about that. Click for larger versions.

*Sunrise on Horseshoe Lake - *exposures 1/2-6secs at f/11 ISO 100
.

*Sunrise on Horseshoe Lake* - Exposures 1.5-8 secs at f/11 ISO100


This next shot was one I was really fond of. Most of you know you don't see a lot of people in my shots, but I really like this one for the balance of the composition, sharpness and the wonderful, warm light I was blessed with. Nits? Not quite dead on with the rule of thirds (but close enough) and I should have used either a greater depth of field or shallower, but not in between. This is a full HDR with a goal of having it not look like one.

*Crabbing* - 1/125 sec at f/8 ISO100


Still more to come...


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## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

Time to wrap this trip up and move on...

By now you can probably see the progression of how the light is changing. As the light cross the lake became harsher, I looked behind me and saw that it was beginning to illuminate the tops of the clouds. I saw a chance for a quick and simple composition and this was the result...

*Sierra Sunrise* - 1/15 @ f/11 ISO100


As the light became cooler and brighter I was able to turn my attention to some subjects that have a little movement to them. These were both straight shots. I feel they were well executed and bothe benefited from having some warm light.

*Laughing Gull* - 1/125 @ f/9.5 ISO100


*Roseatte Spoonbill* - 1/250 @ f/11 ISO400 (200mm X2x)









Finally with the Fourth right around the corner. I shot this on the ferry on the return trip. I took several shots trying to get full extension and this was the best of the bunch. I think the backlighting and high shutter speed on this make it interesting.

*Ferry Flag* - 1/4000 sec @ f/2.8 ISO100 


I hope you've enjoyed this format a bit more than what I've posted in the past. It takes a little more time, but I like it a lot more than "here's 5 shots - whaddya think".

Until next time...


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## labanc (Apr 11, 2005)

Extremely nice shots


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