Saturday, October 9, 2010

A Golden Gate Sunset

A series of 10 photos showing the progression of a sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge


A couple of years ago in November, I read the weather forecast as I normally do and noticed that there would be some high clouds in addition to some very low fog over the ocean.  These are the conditions I look for, because while there is a greater chance that the high clouds will spoil the light, there is also a good chance that they will contribute another dimension to the normal 'foggy sunset' sort of picture.  In american baseball terms, I swing for the fences.  For those outside the US, another way to put it is that I try for the big reward knowing that I also have a big chance at total failure!  And of course, I only show the home runs .. until now!  What follows is my story about 2 home runs in one night.  Both photos have been in several magazines and have received over 50,000 views each on Flickr despite being uploaded when I was totally unknown there.


One reason I go for home runs is not just that I am hoping for a good photo.  It is because I live over 1 hour away from the coast.  There is a series of mountains between me and the coast and it can be hot and dry at my house and cool and foggy at the coast.  I can't just look out the window and be there in 10 minutes if it looks good.  And it may look bad (clear and boring) at my house and good at the coast!  I would probably have 10 times the number of good shots if I lived close to my subjects!  So I have to be good at reading the weather forecasts, sat. photos, webcams and anything else I can find.


High clouds can help any sunrise or sunset shoot because they can soften the light and can also turn red just as the sun sets.  And that red can filter down to the low fog at the Golden Gate, making it more red than it would be otherwise.  The problem, as I mentioned in the previous blog post, is that fog tends to form in California when warm dry air travels over the cold ocean.  And warm dry air usually happens during clear weather.  So when this rare combination of high clouds AND fog happens, I try to get out there!


So, after I arrived and saw how the light and fog were behaving about 30 minutes before sunset, I decided that my best view would be from the Northeast side of the Bridge near Sausalito.  I also decided to stick with this position even if it looked like things might be better elsewhere.  Conditions were changing too quickly for me to run around.


Below is my first photo as the sun began to set.  The clouds were above the fog and there were openings in the clouds, letting the light shine through.  So things were looking good.  Imagine this scene below with clear skies above the fog.  It would not be as interesting.  I got super low to get some mossy dark rocks in the foreground and some water movement.  Still, the light was harsh and bright, so this was really a practice shot.  The following photos (except the two good ones) are straight from the RAW files with all settings on zero..  


(I am showing these photos a bit wider than the blog column, so you can see more detail even though they do not fit perfectly!)
















































As the sun got lower to the right of the bridge, the colors became warmer and the light was softer.  The fog was covering the south tower completely.  I was hoping that the fog would clear just a bit.  There was still enough light for a short exposure to show the water movement, but at this point I was still hoping for things to improve.  Don't let these moments slip by or you may miss the big event.  This is when you should be looking for where you want to be as sunset approaches.








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It was getting darker and I was starting to wonder if anything would happen at all.  I had to go to longer exposure times so I arranged the foreground rock to make it interesting as a long exposure.  There is a bit of red in the sky and the south tower was emerging from the fog, so I had some hope at this moment.  Also, I could see an opening in the clouds to the right of this frame and it was moving in the direction of the setting sun.  More hope!








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Below, the red light of sunset finally began to appear.  The hole in the clouds also came in to view on the right side of the frame.  It was bright so I tried to avoid it but in the end, it opened up a lot so I had to angle the grad filters to make that area darker. There were still about 10 minutes before the sun set, so things were looking good.








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The hole continued to open up and more red was hitting the higher clouds and the streaking fog.  This is about a 30-second exposure and the fog moves at about 30 miles per hour (50kph) through the gate.  This is not the calm fog that you may know.  So long exposures can show a LOT of movement!  I angled the lens downward to show more foreground, and the lens distortion made the north tower bend a lot!  I made sure to make the picture at a wider focal length so that I could bend it back in photoshop.  You lose some around the edges when you bend it back, so be careful pointing up or down when shooting anything vertical!  Also, the bridge lights had just turned on and they become very important as it gets darker.  Watch out if you have two grad filters on with bright artificial lights, you can get doubled reflected light artifacts!  After this, I took off one grad, leaving one on the lens.
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The light was getting REALLY good!  So I set up for a 2-minute exposure.  About halfway through, in came a large shipping container vessel.  For some reason they always seem to come through at sunset.  Sometimes so many come through that you can miss an entire sunset and come back with nothing! I was not happy at this moment.  






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Fortunately, the light held on for just a couple more minutes.  I pointed the lens upward to show more of the impressive sky.  As soon as the ship left the frame, I did another 2-minute exposure.  Any more and the lights become too bright and ruin the photo.  I want everything to be properly exposed.  I was really happy when I looked at the back of the camera.  I knew I had a good one.  This was my first upload to Flickr and it has over 1600 faves as of Oct. 2010.
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After that, the light faded.  However at the Golden Gate Bridge and other bridges and skylines, there are really two sunsets (or sunrises).  The second one comes when the bridge lights dominate, so I was not about to pack up and head home.






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Then, as I was waiting for the bridge lights to get bright enough for a good reflection shot, the moon emerged from behind the clouds.  I must admit that I had not seen the moon.  For some reason I thought it would be lower and out of sight on this evening.  But who am I to complain!  I kept one grad on the lens and set up another two-minute exposure.  I let the crescent moon get completely overexposed because I wanted to show the moonlight on the clouds.  Some people think that this is a full moon that is inserted in Photoshop because the sun is off to the right!  But it is really just a thin crescent.  It moved a lot during the 2-minute exposure too, which enhances the effect of it looking like a full moon.


I could not believe how many elements were in the frame at once.  The moon lit the high clouds, there was still a bit of red from the sunset, there was red in the fog from the bridge lights, and the water had that typical reflection happening.  Amazing, two good shots in one evening!
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In the very next 2-minute exposure I started just after the last one, the sky became dark.  Too dark for my taste.  I like to see some blue in the sky.  Also, the bridge lights become too harsh.  So that was it for the evening after the exposure below was finished.
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This all happened in about 30 minutes.  So you must be ready for anything.  I did not worry about calculating exposure times as it got dark.  Once it was dark and I had no foreground, I set the lens to F8 for the sharpest photo I could get while focused at infinity.  Then, each exposure got longer and longer.  Soon I was at 2 minutes and I stayed with that because the bridge light would get overexposed.  No light meter is necessary because of the gradual lengthening of each exposure.  Once I was going for long exposures, the exposure times went something like (in secs.) 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 120, 120.  Since there is no time to calculate once you are past 15 seconds or so, just make the next exposure longer than you think it should be!


That's it.  Go out and give it a shot!


Patrick





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Saturday, October 2, 2010

How I Photographed a Sunrise at the Golden Gate

The Agony and the Ecstasy!


The Golden Gate Bridge is a great place to shoot.  Everyone knows about the fog and the views and how the light and visibility can change in an instant.  When I take people up here for workshops on a foggy day with the mist swirling below, they tell me that they have never seen anything like it anywhere in the world.  It is not just the view but really how the fog behaves.  It almost seems alive sometimes.  To most people, fog is something that forms in valleys on cold nights with little wind.  Usually the wind is the enemy of fog and the slightest bit of wind will blow it away in a few minutes.  But here, the wind acts like a warm breath into a cold freezer case at the local grocery store.  Warm air above a cold ocean are the required elements, and this happens in very few places in the world.  Namibia in South Africa and the coast of Northern Chile are two places where this commonly occurs.


There are some tricks to capturing the fickle nature of this place.  Conditions have to be just right.


1.  The fog has to be low enough to see the bridge.  Of course this is true, but often it gets too deep and overwhelms the view and even the tops of the surrounding hills are obscured.  Most local people know about this, but conditions are right for the best fog when it is about 300 feet deep (100m) to match the level of the bridge deck above the ocean.  You need a warm spell caused by an weak inversion of warm air.  This usually happens just before and after summer, so April-May or September-October.  It can happen at any time of year but in the summer, the inversion is too strong and fog is often too deep.  In the winter, there are storms which make the upper air as cold as the ocean.  This low and thin fog happens just before or just after a hot spell.  Sometimes there is a very thin layer of fog even during a hot spell.  So you must watch the weather forecasts carefully.  


2.  One difficult problem is that if you want a truly memorable picture, it is good to have some higher clouds in the picture.  A flat blue sky is boring, but unfortunately, the warm high pressure conditions that create the fog also block clouds from forming.  As a result, most of the foggy days have clear skies above them.  So look out for those rare clouds.


3.  It can not be too windy.  Even though the fog is caused by warm winds over cold water, if it is too windy, it is just too difficult to keep the camera in place.  It can literally be blown over while on a sturdy tripod.  Light winds happen just before or after a hot spell.  Also, the wind can feel really cold.  Sometimes it is mixed with warm air but you never know.  


4.  Sunrise is better than sunset when shooting on the Marin County Headlands you will see below.  However, when shooting from the bay side, north or south of the bridge, sunset is best.  But this blog entry is about sunrises.


5.  If you wait until it is light-enough to see if there is good fog, you have waited too long!  You really need to get there in the dark in order to get ready for the best light.  This increases the risk that you will be there when there is too much fog or none at all at sunrise.  But if you don't go for it, you will never get a shot like the first one below.  And this is why you have to study the weather closely, so that you can increase your chances.  I live 1 hour away from the bridge, so it is a lot of effort (and co2 emissions) for me to make an attempt.  I'm right about 30% of the time even after all that effort so don't be disappointed!


I could go on, but the point is that taming this fickle beast takes a lot of preparation!


The shoot:


On this particular late September morning, a hot spell was just ending.  It was hot overnight at my house about 20 miles inland and I noticed that some high clouds were streaming in from the south.  I read the local weather discussion and it talked about a very low inversion layer with hot air above.  It also said that the hot spell was going to break and the fog would be moving in sometime in the early morning.  So about 90 minutes before sunrise, I drove to the bridge.  From across the bay in Berkeley as I drive, I can sometimes see how the fog is moving.  However, at this time I could not see much in the dark but a bit of hazy light below the bridge.  That gave me hope.


I decided to chose the first tourist pullout on the Marin side as my location.  Despite its popularity, I have always avoided it because it is so overshot.  But the fog was obscuring other positions.  This is important.  Do not get married to an idea about what you wish to shoot.  Planning is good but be prepared to abandon your plans in favor of good light and visibility!


As I pulled in to the completely empty but well-worn lot, there was an eerie 3-ft. deep layer of fog on the road with solid fog below on the hill.  I could easily see the bridge and realized that the fog was just forming just at that moment.  As I walked to the edge of the cliff, the fog suddenly thickened and the wind came up strongly and my visibility went to about 20 feet!  The temperature dropped from being dry and warm to cold and clammy in 20 seconds.  I had on just a thin short sleeved shirt so it felt cold for a few minutes.  Of course it was just becoming light but I hoped that I'd get some openings in the fog, so I continued to the edge of the cliff.  


Of course I can not settle for just a shot of the bridge, I wanted to get down the cliff a bit to see the ocean below and some foreground in front. The problem was that is was still dark and very foggy.  So I only went down the cliff about 20 feet past the fence (which is supposed to keep people from falling in the the pacific Ocean!)  


Then the wind stopped and the fog level dropped to the same height of the bridge.  It was still dark but some light was appearing on the horizon and there was a bit of blue in the sky.  You really want some light in the sky even though the orange bridge lights make this sort of shot work well.  You get just a few minutes when the light in the sky is even with the bridge lights so you must be prepared.  Fortunately the view opened up and I saw this view.








































The fog was moving in between the two ridges in the foreground.  Without this fog, the viewer would not realize that there is depth to be seen here.  So I moved around to show these two ridges.  This is a two minute exposure and I used a 0.9 ND grad filter because even though the sky was dark to my eye, it was still brighter than the bottom of the picture.  Avoid using two filters with bridge lights in the dark because you end up with double reflections of each light!  The fog was moving fast so I waited for it to be covering the bridge traffic deck, but just a little.  Sometimes the deck was completely invisible and sometimes it was completely out of the fog.  Neither effect looks as good as this partial-fog effect. 


At this moment, there were no other photographers here.


The fog got thin, so I waited for it to thicken up.  While I was waiting, the sky got brighter and the bridge lights became dimmer in comparison.  As I mentioned before, you only get a few minutes.  Fortunately, the fog cooperated for just a minute in order to capture this view below.










There was still some nice light from the bridge lamps so I lucked out.  Right after this exposure, the fog moved in thick.  But these two photos looked good in my viewfinder so I moved down the cliff very slowly to avoid falling off!  When I review the photos, I look at the graphs to make sure I have a good exposure.  In the dark, the viewfinder looks bright and colorful, but on your computer, you may discover that the photo is dark!  I also magnify the image to 100% to make sure it is sharp and of high quality.


At this moment there was one other photographer here, shooting with a tripod but no grad filter and simply shooting the bridge with no foreground in the shot.


The reason I wanted to move further down the cliff is because you can get a better view of the crashing surf, and that is what was missing from the first two photos above.


Once in my lower position, I waited for the fog to move and it did!






In some ways, the light is not as dramatic here, but the pre-sunrise light was bathing the fog in a reddish glow, so that helped.  The high clouds were a bit thin for my liking too, but since there are usually no clouds at all, I was happy to see them.  The light in the sky was now overwhelming the bridge lights, but they are still visible though not as glowing as before.  I put on my second 0.9 (3-stop) ND grad filter for a total of 6 stops.  Also, the towers are no longer glowing as they were.  At this point, I was going for more of a standard landscape than the nocturnal sort of shot.  There are really two sunrises to shoot at this location, one for the bridge light and one for a dramatic sunrise behind the bridge.  


The fog got thick again so I waited for the fog to become interesting once more.  Finally I saw this sight below and gave it one more try.


This deck lights are now gone, but the sun is spreading red light in to the clouds.  This is when some thick dramatic clouds would be nice.  I must remember to come back to get that view.  One thing I've noticed about red clouds is that my Canon 5d mkII and most other cameras can not record red as our eye sees it.  I had to desaturate the red channel in Photoshop because the red clouds were just red blobs.  But now you can see the detail with a desaturated red channel.  It makes things a bit flat in color but this is reality!  And I really want to show things as they are even if it does not catch the eye like a hyper saturated photo.


After I made this image, I climbed back up the cliff.  I was about 100 feet below the tourist fencing and when I went around the fence, I saw 10 photographers with tripods just setting up.  My guess is that they looked out the window, saw the fog and headed out.  But they were too late.  Right after this, the light became harsh and bright.  


When I looked at all 12 images I made this morning, I really am only going to publish the first one to my website.  The others are a bit flat compared to the dramatic north tower in the first photo above.  But I'll be back!


Remember, get here in the dark!


Go to my Flickr stream below for a big version of the first photo above.


Thanks for reading,


Patrick

My fine-art website
Learn from the old masters with my 325-page e-book!
Hi-res downloads and framed photo prints

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