Summer's Dawn

Posted by Don Smith (California, United States) on 1 July 2009 in Landscape & Rural.

Summer along the central coast can mean foggy mornings and the absence of color. On this particular summer' morning, the opposite was true. I captured this image approximately 10 minutes prior to posted sunrise time when the air was perfectly still and the flowers stood at their best attention awaiting a photographer's click of the shutter.

These bright yellow wildflowers, blooming from the chaparral which lines the bluffs along Garrapata State Beach in Big Sur, stood extra still while a 15 second timed-shutter captured their brilliance parlayed against the cobalt blues of the Pacific Ocean and a warming dawn sky.

A wide angle zoom set at 28 mm framed the scene which allowed for many layers thus creating a sense of depth. I used an aperture of f/22 to hold focus as tightly as possible throughout the entire frame. There are ways around this depth-of-field issue: tilt/shift lenses being one and software such as Helicon Focus another, but I feel as long as the foreground subject is sharp, the image will stand on its own merit even if the focus gradually fades towards the background (which is tough to see with Aminus3 image compression).

I talk a lot in my workshops about "limiting factors" when out on location. Coastal scenes usually bring the presence of wind; however, one can minimize that variable by arriving 30-40 minutes prior to posted sunrise and shooting during dawn's civil twilight. Summer months mean extremely early wake-up calls, I awoke at 3:30 am to ensure arriving in time to make this capture, but when the conditions are right, it certainly makes breakfast taste a whole lot better!

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