Feature Photo
"The Emancipation of Dawn"

Early this spring I traveled to the Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island's west coast. This is a remarkable place where nature and landscape abound in dramatic fashion. Within a two hour span I could be shooting a variety of landscapes that ranged from rain forests to coastal beaches and of course, mountains.

"The Emancipation of Dawn" was photographed at sunrise overlooking Clayoquot Sound and was a location I discovered the day before while on a scouting mission. Scouting locations is essential when shooting in unfamiliar territory. I tend to look for areas with great visual interest and then take a compass reading to determine where the light will be coming from. This location happened to face east so a sunrise shot was the obvious choice.

Technical Considerations:
Camera: Canon 1DS MKIII
Aperture: f/11 -Since I was focusing at infinity I choose to use a "sweet spot" aperture on my lens for maximum image quality. When focusing at infinity it is not always necessary to stop down to the smallest aperture.
Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec - Shutter speed was not an issue for me as I was on a tripod.
ISO: 100 - I try use the lowest ISO when on a tripod to help ensure the best image quality.
Focal Length: 50 mm - I chose a normal focal length for this scene because I didn't want any perspective changes caused by the optical effects of wide and telephoto lenses. A wide angle lens would have pushed the mountains in the background further into the distance giving them less importance in the composition. On the flip side, a telephoto lens would have brought the mountains in nice and close but at the expense of sacrificing key components of the composition.
Lens: Canon 24-70 F2.8L
Filter: 2 Stop Graduated ND- I wanted to bring up the exposure a bit in the foreground while maintaining detail in the bright sky so I used my trusty 2ND Grad filter. This also saved me a tone of photoshop time!
Exposure Compensation:+2/3 - Using the camera's histogram I dialed in the correct exposure being careful not to overexpose any of the highlights.
Tripod Used: Yes
Cable Release Used: Yes
Mirror Lock-Up Used: Yes

Creative Considerations:
I new the sky would occupy the most visual space in this composition as it was turning out to be truly a tremendous sunrise so I had made the decision to place it in the top two thirds of the composition. However, there were also a couple of vertical elements to this composition that needed correct placement as well. Using the rule of thirds I placed the opening between the two mountains in the right third and the intense colour from the sunrise on the left third. Pretty straight forward but when the light is changing this fast you need a plan that will get you set up quickly!

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