Sneaky Sunday... - Rodney Campbell's Blog Rodney Campbell's Blog

Sneaky Sunday…

by Rodney Campbell on Jan.06, 2016, under Life, Photography

Sneaky Sunday is something my good friend Gerry instigated some time back. At it’s simplest it just meant to sneak out on a Sunday morning to shoot the sunrise at some as yet undisclosed location. We used to shoot a lot on Saturday mornings but with more and more photographers getting out in the field for sunrise sessions it was hard to go somewhere without a crowd of eager photographers trying to cram into one tiny location. It was hoped the switch to Sundays would bring about quieter and more peaceful locations. When that doesn’t work – find new locations, less well known locations or places most togs don’t go and shoot.

OK we’re heading off topic… So it was we had earlier in the week laid the foundations for plans to shoot a sneaky sunday at the end of the week. As with all well laid plans there was much vigorous debate over the location :). So it wasn’t till 11PM the night before that we finally decided where we’d shoot :).

S Bend

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm, 31 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Gerry, Deb and I made the return trip to the Sea Cliff Bridge. Almost a year ago we were shooting at Coalcliff on a wet and overcast morning and discussed shooting the Sea Cliff Bridge from a location we’d heard of up on the cliff above the bridge. We recce’d the area which we believed was the entry point to the area but went no further that day.

Now a year later we’re back and again there’s quite a bit of cloud in the sky and a light drizzle on the drive down. We made good time to the car park but even with zero traffic at 4AM it still took over an hour to get here. About twenty five minutes later we’d followed the fenceline and done a bit of bush bashing and were on location and setup to shoot.

Sunrise was just before 5:50AM and we were shooting a bit over half an hour before that.

The view from up top is pretty spectacular but you do have to be careful up here. Falling (a very very long way to almost certain death) is not recommended.

The Bends

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm, 30 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Earlier on the darkness was giving us naturally long exposures and adding to the dark moody feel. With the few cars passing by at 5:20AM we could also include some car trails – however they were too few and far between. The sky was giving us almost nothing and it was rapidly getting brighter. Early on it almost looked like we might get a bit of colour in the sky with a few faint red and pink patches in the sky. Alas the heavy band of cloud right on the horizon brought us back to earth and left us with a dull uneventful sneaky sunday sunrise.

The two shots above are thirty (30) minutes apart, plus a move of about 10 metres along and down the cliff top area to a different shooting location.

There’s really only a few different compositions you can make from up here. The view is pretty fixed and when the weather conditions aren’t changing it gets pretty boring pretty fast taking repeated shots of the same thing in the vain hope that something, anything, will improve your shot :)…

Sinuous Flow

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 25 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Tighter horizontal shot, wider vertical, even tried a stitched panorama when the clouds had maximum colour right around sunrise.

Sea Cliff Bridge

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm, 5 sec at f/16, ISO 100 x 7 Frames

After sunrise in the bleakness it was time to turn to the heavy ND’s like the Lee Little Stopper (6 Stop) and Big Stopper (10 Stop). A single photographer shooting from the deck of the bridge cuts a lonely figure when he is all that is left when all else is swept away in this five minute exposure.

Swept