A Sunrise Photography Workshop in Mount Maunganui with Fujifilm NZ
HUGE thank you to everyone who rocked up for the Fujifilm X-Series NZ touch and try photography event with me and Bingham in Mount Maunganui. It was such a rad time! In this post I’ll share the TLDR of what went down, with a few top tips. Enjoy!
It was touch and go what nature would deliver for us that morning, Mount Maunganui had cloud forecast so we weren’t sure if we’d even get a sunrise or not. But Mama Nature delivered and not only did we have a stunning sunrise but we also had a dreamy peeling wave rolling in at Mount Main Beach.
This meant I could share more knowledge for how I photography the ocean and nature during these unique times of the day when light conditions - and therefore the camera settings - are ever-changing.
How to photograph blue & golden hour
We started with sunrise at an elevated location on Mauao to get a good amount of ocean and sky into the frame, where we spent some time in the low light conditions of blue hour, observing nature and practicing slow shutter techniques.
I love exploring slow shutter at this time of day, and the slightly cloudy conditions on the day really lent themselves to a panning shot after the sun had risen. I generally like to shoot in blue hour so as not to get the intensity of the sunlight into a panning shot, so as to keep the colour gradient soft and consistent.
The thing I love most about Fujifilm is that they design their gear with the user in mind, they make it as intuitive as possible to accommodate rapidly changing course as the conditions change, but also as sparks of inspiration come to the creator. This workshop in the Mount was a great opportunity to put the gear through it’s paces while allowing fellow creators to try a range of Fujifilm gear.
Photo credit: Samuel Bingham
How to create a photo that looks like a painting
This is an example of a panning shot taken during a massive swell from the same location in Mount Maunganui in 2020. I photographed this scene before the sun had risen, which meant I could shoot using a slow shutter speed, without a filter, and achieve a consistent colour tone across the image without any highlighted blow outs.
Fujifilm X-T3 | 1/15 | f/4.5 | ISO 160
During the workshop, I took a few panning shots pre-sunrise but with a small swell, there wasn’t much special to capture in the shots. However, after the sun popped, I created the below shot. I love how the reflection of the sunlight on the water created streaks of light radiating down the composition.
To create this image, I closed up the aperture and took the shutter speed a little higher that I usually would for a panning shot to compensate for the very bright sunlight in frame. The presence of cloud really helped to make this shot and disperse a little bit of sunlight. Had this been a bluebird day, the results would not have been the same.
Fujifilm X-T3 | 1/30 | f/22 | ISO 160
Although I have a general rule for myself of what I prefer to shoot, it’s ALWAYS worth breaking out of your comfort zone and getting experimental. The only way to do this is to remain completely in tune with - and reactive to - the conditions nature puts out there.
I was going to add a section in here with a guide to taking a good panning photo, but I’ve got so many tips I decided I’m going to turn that into a separate blog post instead.
Photographing a subject during golden hour in the Mount
After sunrise, we dropped down into the rocky shoreline where I had the pleasure of leading a shoot in the rocky shoreline with one of our participants - Zoe - who luckily ran out of space on her memory card and was fully ready to throw herself into the firing line of my lens (and another 10 photographer’s lenses too lol).
It was my intention to pack as much of my experimental approach and top tips as possible into the golden hour while people had the opportunity to borrow whatever Fujifilm gear they wanted.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this awesome event, stay tuned for more!
L x
