It is the 22nd of March, 5:30 in the morning and my alarm just went off… I suddenly remember why I decided to get up this silly hour… I was planning on taking a photograph of the jetty of the Vlietlanden, a small recreational lake in the neighbourhood. For weeks I was wondering how my new ultra wide angle lense was going to work at this familliar location. Now was the time to see if I could capture the potential of the location.

6:00 hrs: I grab my camerabag and gear and walk towards my car. The Windows have frost all over them, it’s freezing cold outside… It’s supposed to be springtime allready but winter is not giving up easily… This is going to be a very cold shoot.
Arriving at the location I set everything up in the car, my fingers are still warm so it is easier to fiddle with the small pieces of the filter system.

6:30 hrs: I an walking towards the jetty looking up at the sky… All clear… The night before I carefully studied the forecast and it was predicted that it was going to be a great sunrise with some clouds in the sky. That was the reason I was here. But halas, mother nature did it again she changed her mind and went for the clear sky sunrise. I decided to change plans and walk around a little to see if there is a nice bluehour Composition to be found. I take a couple of frames but they are not working for me.

Here’s my setup during the tryouts of other frames I could make at the location. and below is the result from that specific shot.

Finally at 7:00 hrs the sun is starting to climb above the horizon. In the mean time I slowly start to freeze my fingers off. I decided to go and make the composition I was planning all along only with the clear sky it’s going to be a completely different kind of image.

At 7:30 I’m in the car again trying to get warm and putting all the camera stuff back into my bag, it’s time to go to work.
All in all the end result is’nt to bad, the wide view of the lense creates a wonderful feeling of depth and perspective.
I’m actuallly quite happy with the image. It just needed a slightly longer exposure time, I can easily fix that in photoshop but to me that feels like cheating… 😉

My plans for an photograph of a strangely shaped jetty under golden flood light and amazing clouds still linger on…