This is one of my favorite pictures that I took in Alameda, where I lived until a couple months ago. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to grab my camera and head to a nearby bridge – and was rewarded with this spectacular sunrise!
For editing, I decided to practice my local adjustments. Among other things, I reduced texture on the water to enhance the soft feel of the scene (I was handholding, otherwise would have tried a long exposure). I also dodged and burned various areas in the scene, including the lights, railing, and rocks.
Specific Feedback Requested
Anything – composition, colors, etc.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
1/320s
f/5.6
ISO 100
22mm
Beautiful sunset, but I feel that that’s all there is to it. From the processing perspective, my thinking is that the foreground comes out somewhat dark and lacks details. I think the rocky texture on the shoreline will make a nice contrast to the glassy water.
@Adhika_Lie Thank you for your feedback. What would you recommend I do differently to make the image have something “more to it”?
Hi @Matthew_Chatham . I’m going to tackle this two fold, one is settings and the other is composition.
You did a good job of exposing correctly and post processing. The colors and shadow detail looks great. The horizon is level and on the top third.
Did you happen to shot this on Aperture Priority? I ask because although your settings are fine for the exposure and the background and foreground both seem to be in focus, you will run into situations where they won’t be.
For such a deep depth of field image like this it’s best to have your aperture at atleast f8 to f16 to get everything in focus from foreground to background. Your shutter speed of 1/320s gives you plenty of room to stop down to the smaller aperture. You also have room to bump up your ISO if you can’t get a long enough shutter speed.
The second is composition. I like what you have selected and your eye has spotted a great scene. As composed you have 3 prominent elements, The lamp post, the railing and the bridge in the background. These fight for the viewer’s attention. If you were to move forward or zoom in from the current position you can eliminate the lamp post and the horizontal portion of the railing, turning the railing into a leading line that leads the viewer to the bridge. Zooming in would also increase the size of the bridge making it more prominent.
If you get a chance to go back, play around with this scene and see what you can do to with my suggestions.
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I’m amazed that you would have even attempted shooting this scene handheld, it just cries out for a tripod. Using an aperture of f5.6 is not enough for a scene with this much depth. If you look at the large version it’s not sharp, although frankly I’m also amazed that it is not even more soft considering you had a ss of only 1/320 sec . Shooting scenes like this handheld is just not going to cut it for image sharpness, nobody’s hands are that steady. And if you had to attempt this shot because you forgot your tripod at home, then I would have put ISO higher than 100.
I do think there is more to this image than “just another pretty sunrise”. My thoughts on composition were summed up nicely by @Michael_Torkildsen . The lamp post increases the busyness factor too much, and interferes with the viewer moving down the leading line. I do think the bridge is very interesting, and is part of why this rises above “just another pretty sunrise”.
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@Michael_Torkildsen @Ed_McGuirk thank you for all the helpful feedback! Michael’s feedback about the 3 main elements fighting makes a lot of sense, I think this is a problem that happens frequently in my compositions. I want to include everything and try to make it work, but sometimes simpler is the way 
Regarding aperture, to be honest I don’t know why I shot this at f/5.6, because I agree that’s not enough for this scene. I probably was not fully awake yet and running on limited sleep! Regarding Ed’s point about the tripod, that might have been ideal but unfortunately I was shooting from a bridge with active traffic, so I’m not sure it would have helped due to the vibrations.
Thanks again for the helpful feedback, not sure if I’ll ever get the chance to re-attempt this particular scene but I will try to keep it in mind for the future!
Yeah, I was that way too but you’ll get more refined as time goes by.
