{"id":9485,"date":"2015-07-07T07:28:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T21:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/?p=9485"},"modified":"2015-07-07T07:28:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T21:28:21","slug":"before-and-after-dragons-head-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/2015\/07\/07\/before-and-after-dragons-head-victoria\/","title":{"rendered":"Before and After – Dragon’s Head, Victoria"},"content":{"rendered":"

[twentytwenty]\"before\"\"after\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/twentytwenty]<\/p>\n

Dragon’s Head is located at\u00a0 Number Sixteen beach, Rye, Victoria and has been on my to do list for a while now. A few months ago, I finally got around to shooting it\u00a0with an early start for a sunrise shoot. Having not been to the location before, walking out the rock ledge, dodging the little rock pools and trying to find a good angle of the ‘Dragon’s Head’ without taking an accidental swim made for a rather different\u00a0but enjoyable way to start my Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Finding an Angle<\/h3>\n

Composing my image I clearly wanted to make the ‘Dragon’s Head’ the key part of my image. But with this in mind, I needed some other things in the photo to balance the photo out\u00a0and give it my own personal touch. That’s not to say someone before me hasn’t taken the exact same photo but I needed something more than just a photo of the object. For this reason I opted to use the water cascading over the small rock ledge as a foreground element and leading line to the Dragon’s Head. Getting this angle required me to get low and a few attempts until the right surge of water came across (and a few yanks of the camera to safety.. Crisis averted luckily ;)).<\/p>\n

In person, Dragon’s Head is actually quite small, so much so, it took me a bit of stumbling around in the dark with the head torch to actually notice it. For this reason, I really had to leverage\u00a0traditional composition techniques by using a leading line, in this case, the water cascading over the rock ledge to lead the viewer to the rock. I think it worked well but I’d be keen to hear otherwise.<\/p>\n

Shooting the Image<\/h3>\n

The photo was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40 and Cokin Z-Pro graduated filter\u00a0with a 2.5 second exposure at F\/16. Using the graduated neutral density filter\u00a0was useful for holding back the sun rising to the left of the frame which would have otherwise created a partial highlight in the left of the frame. Through using a graduated neutral density filter for this part of the shot, this allowed me to not get any highlights in my sky while maintaining a good exposure of the bottom of the frame. I find this provides you with more of a neutral\/flat look to your straight out of camera image but gives you a lot more space to work with when it comes to post processing the image.<\/p>\n

Post Processing the Image<\/h3>\n

Working with a photo of a sunrise which doesn’t have any sharp highlights or shadows saves a lot of time when it comes to post processing. For this reason, post processing for this image of Dragon’s Head was processed in Lightroom and included:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Straightening the image<\/li>\n
  • Applying a graduated neutral density filter in Lightroom to darken the sky and further bring out the sunrise colours<\/li>\n
  • Using the adujstment brush to paint over the Dragon’s Head\u00a0and the bottom of the frame to make both appear brighter<\/li>\n
  • Simple curves adjustment over the whole image adjusting the shadows, midtones and highlights to give it a bit more of a punchy contrast<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Without going overboard on an image that could have almost passed straight out of camera, that was the extent of the processing and that was that.<\/p>\n

    Thanks for reading and if you ever get a chance, be sure to visit Dragon’s Head down at Rye on the Mornington Peninsular on sunrise. A stunning place.<\/p>\n

    – Alex<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [twentytwenty] [\/twentytwenty] Dragon’s Head is located at\u00a0 Number Sixteen beach, Rye, Victoria and has been on my to do list for a while now. A few months ago, I finally got around to shooting it\u00a0with an early start for a sunrise shoot. Having not been to the location before, walking out the rock ledge, dodging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":9490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Before and After - Dragon's Head, Victoria","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[992,3,4],"tags":[1099,1106,1100,1117,1134,1140],"class_list":["post-9485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-before-and-after-technique","category-technique","category-travels","tag-dragons-head","tag-long-exposure","tag-rye","tag-seascape","tag-sunrise","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/dragonsheadbeforeandafter.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p93MA-2sZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11088,"url":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/2018\/01\/11\/free-lightroom-presets-for-drone-photography\/","url_meta":{"origin":9485,"position":0},"title":"Free Lightroom Presets for Drone Photography","author":"Alex Wise","date":"January 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Picked up a drone and still learning your way around Adobe Lightroom? 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This quick guide includes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Before and After"","block_context":{"text":"Before and After","link":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/category\/technique\/before-and-after-technique\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/beforeafter.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/beforeafter.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/beforeafter.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/beforeafter.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10114,"url":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/2016\/12\/21\/places-to-photograph-in-victoria\/","url_meta":{"origin":9485,"position":1},"title":"74 Places to Photograph in Victoria","author":"Alex Wise","date":"December 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"After putting together a list of my favourite\u00a0Tasmania photography locations\u00a0back in 2009, I thought after 5 years of living in Victoria it was time to start developing a\u00a0list of great photography locations in Victoria. \u00a0This list provides you with 56 locations around Victoria to photograph and is constantly being updated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jibber"","block_context":{"text":"Jibber","link":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/category\/jibber\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/thumb.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7629,"url":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/2016\/07\/02\/before-and-after-port-melbourne\/","url_meta":{"origin":9485,"position":2},"title":"Before and After – Port Melbourne","author":"Alex Wise","date":"July 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"[twentytwenty] [\/twentytwenty] Driving around Port Melbourne on a rainy Sunday\u00a0with Jon Sander\u00a0last winter, we stumbled across this overpass that provides a\u00a0great view of one of Melbourne's\u00a0busier highways. 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Amidst\u00a0the exposure, some people were calling that the sub-reddit had degenerated into nothing more than heavily Photoshopped images that didn't depict how the scene accurately looked. As part of my\u00a0[ilink url=\"http:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/category\/technique\/before-and-after-technique\/\"]Before and After Series[\/ilink] I'd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Before and After"","block_context":{"text":"Before and After","link":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/category\/technique\/before-and-after-technique\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Mansfield-Before-and-After.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Mansfield-Before-and-After.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Mansfield-Before-and-After.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Mansfield-Before-and-After.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8309,"url":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/2015\/03\/09\/before-and-after-wye-river\/","url_meta":{"origin":9485,"position":4},"title":"Before and After – Wye River","author":"Alex Wise","date":"March 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"[twentytwenty] [\/twentytwenty] Photographing star trails is something that is forever on my to do list. I\u2019ve photographed countless sunrise and sunsets over the years but star trails continue to elude me. 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A place I spent a lot of time as a kid and close to the beautiful Bay of Fires. 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