For my photography adventure this weekend, I went to Tybee Island's South Beach at sunrise. This time of year sunrise comes about 7:15AM, so the day for me started about 4:30AM. I like to get up early, eat breakfast, and get on location at least 1/2 hour before sunrise. An hour before sunrise is better so you have a little more time to scout the area and find some interesting forground elements for the photography.

So here's what my schedule was like:

4:30AM - Up and out of bed, turn on the coffee pot, eat breakfast, check weather reports.

5:30AM - Load all photography gear in the truck.

5:45AM - Leave for Tybee Island, about a 45 minute drive from my house.

6:50AM - Finally get setup and start scouting locations on the beach (25 minutes before sunrise... pushing it...) Well, I did find a rock jetty that I thought would be a good foreground element with the ocean and sunrise in the background. The wind was howling, about 25mph and it was a cool 45 degrees. However, it was not too windy to grab some good photos. I take at least 3, sometimes 4-5 photos with different exposure compensation settings of the exact same image while adding or subtracting a stop of light to each exposure. These different exposures are then blended and layered in Lightroom and Photoshop back at home (back in the Darkroom so to speak). Here's some of the results from the rock jetty:

The second one (directly above), I thought would make a good fine art print.

Here's a somewhat humorous video of the weather conditions that day:

Video #1          Video #2

Sorry for the virtical alignment on the videos, I'll be sure and take those horizontally next time.

So, after making all the photograph exposures that I needed at the rock jetty, I headed back to the dune area. I noticed a few pieces of driftwood there earlier and the dunes themselves might make some good foregrounds. Here's some of the results:

I thought all three of the above images would make great fine art prints. Hope you agree!

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