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Water and bright sunlight usually don't make a happy photographic combination.
Normally, when photographing water, we like soft lighting to avoid burnt out highlights and to allow the use of longer shutter speeds with corresponding blur.
However, on this occasion, full on sunlight was perfect for photographing the bright highlights and swirls caused by the passage of a single canoe down the river Dee at Chester.
I was standing on the suspension bridge over the river, camera and long lens in hand, watching the boats move up and down when I saw this canoe heading directly for me.
I took a single image as it passed underneath me, and I was delighted with the resulting patterns in the canoe's wake.
This is a deceptively simple image, based on a composition consisting of a single diagonal line running through the frame and a single focal point, the canoe's tail.
The colour palette is also very stark, with just two tones of yellow and cyan, but all these simple elements work together to give an overall picute that is very pleasing and feels just right.
Filename - canoe-wake 01.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 105mm
Exposure - 1/80sec @ f11, ISO400
Location - Chester, England
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Shutter speed chosen to freeze movement.
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.