I’m not usually one to post photos that evoke sentiment and tug at heart strings, which is what seems to happen with sunrise images especially over water. Personally, I’m less into sentiment and more into fart jokes. Nevertheless, when a gigantic fiery fusion reactor explodes over the horizon, who am I to argue with a little sentiment? Below are four photos shot from Prince Arthur’s Landing in Thunder Bay. The first two I shot last September. The last two I shot this May. I’ll introduce the photos with some technical info about each of the four different lenses I used. If technobabble doesn’t kill sentiment, I don’t know what will.
For the first, I used a 24mm F 1.4 prime lens (Sigma Art). The wide angle accounts for the distortion to the edges (e.g. the leaning grain elevator). Note that the “bloody sky” is emphatically not the result of colour enhancement in post-processing. What you see is what I saw.
The second photo looks a bit like a cropped detail from the first. In a way it is. I shot the same sailboat with a 100mm F 2.8 IS USM macro lens. Who says you can only use a macro lens for close-ups and portraits?
I shot the 3rd photo with a 50mm F 1.4 prime lens (Sigma Art). There is far less distortion to the edges than in the 1st shot. I also used a polarizing filter to tame the light a bit.
For the final shot, I used a Canon 70-200mm F 2.8 L USM telephoto lens to capture the grain elevator and its reflection in the harbour while the sky was still washed in pink hues.
Also, I should mention that for each shot, I froze my ass. To be factual, I froze my fingers. Freezing one’s ass is just an expression. My ass was quite warm.
