Hawkesbury River Sunrise

[iceman]

On the way to work the other week, I was driving down the F3 freeway when a beautiful sunrise started forming with these stunning streaky clouds coming straight from the direction of sunrise.

I was fortunate enough to have my camera and tripod with me on this day (I normally don't!) so pulled over at the Hawkesbury River bridge to capture these shots. It was still dark and the stars of Scorpius can be seen too, so I could've posted this in Nightscapes too :)

3 minutes later, back in the car and on the way to work again :)

Do you prefer the vertical or horizontal composition?

- Large 1 (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/353)
- Large 2 (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/354)

Thanks for looking.

[sheeny]

Vertical for me. The clouds work along the long side of the image, and I think (interested to see if I'm right;)) the colours seem richer to me, suggesting it was taken first (assuming your processing was the same for each).

The landscape format one would be my choice for a desktop background though.;)

Al.

[Larryp]

Great images, Mike. I like the vertical as it seems to concentrate the clouds so that they dominate the image more

[Deeno]

Nice catch!
I do like the way the clouds 'fan' out in the horizontal....then again....I also like the contrasting texture of the mud and the way it catches the light in the vertical

[lacad01]

Beautiful shots Mike :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Thanks guys.

You're right Al, the vertical was shot slightly before the horizontal, but I did go back and re-process the vertical from lightroom to reduce the highlights and bring detail back into the area just above the mountain line.

I also added some richer colours in lightroom (saturation of reds, yellows and oranges).

They were amazing clouds! Never seen ones like it before.

The sunrise later on was spectacular too, but by then I was back in the car and there's nowhere nice to stop and shoot on the pacific hwy to Sydney.

[ourkind]

Great shots Mike! I really like the horizontal version although I can see the apeal of the verticle one with the long streaking clouds, it just seems that the verticle one needs centering to the left i.e. crop from Mike S. It'll make the clouds look longer too. But i DO like it :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Thanks for your feedback, Carlos!