How I Framed a Sunset Under the Scripps Pier

On Friday night (May 2nd, 2008), I went to La Jolla Shores and took these pictures (click on picture to go to Flickr page, then click "All Sizes" to see larger version):

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I had taken similar pictures of the Scripps Pier during the day:



About a month ago, I thought it would be really cool if I could get a picture of the sun setting in the center of the pier. It seems easy enough; sit under the pier, wait until the sun goes down, take pictures. However, the sun is only in this spot twice a year.

I figured it would be pretty easy to figure out; I just assumed that the sun always sets exactly in the west, and since the pier is perpendicular to the shore, it must point exactly west as well.

After looking at the Scripps Pier on Google Maps, I discovered that the pier actually pointed pretty far north, since the coast of La Jolla shores doesn't exactly run north and south. I thought my ideal picture was impossible, since I still figured the sun only set directly west.

After looking into it a little more, I learned that the sunset moves further and further north as summer approaches. The pier still points pretty far north of west, but I thought I'd check it out anyway to see if it was possible.

I knew I had the resources to determine what conditions I would need to make this work. First, I opened up Google Maps to get a good satellite view of the pier (see above link) to measure the angle of the pier. I took a screenshot and opened up Photoshop to measure the angle. Using the ruler/measurement tool, I found that the pier sticks out at 18.2° north of west.



Would the sun ever get to 18.2° north of west? Another program, Stellarium, shows the positions in the sky of any stars, planets, moons, etc., from any location on Earth at any given time.

In the beginning of April, the sun set at almost exactly directly west. I pointed my field of view slightly north of west, turned on something called "Azimuth lines" (which vertically divides the horizon), and fast-forwarded, looking for a sunset that seemed approximately at the right angle. When the time got to around April 30th, the sun seemed to be in the right spot. Since there were 6 azimuth lines between west and north, I figured they were each 15° apart (90°/6 = 15° each). The sun appeared to be around 18° north of west, close to the angle of the pier.



A visit to the NOAA Solar Position Calculator website let me confirm my calculations. After inputting the exact latitude and longitude of the pier (32.866 N, 117.254 W; determined from Google Maps), the date I was going to go to the pier (May 2nd, 2008), and the sunset time (which can be found on various weather sites), I found that the precise azimuth was 289.28° east of north, or 19.28° north of west (very close to my 18.2°). Note: a slightly further north sunset was ideal, because I wanted the sun slightly above the horizon when it was framed in the pier.

So I went to the beach that night a while before sunset and took my pictures. I had a little trouble getting the lighting good (since the sun is so much brighter than the inside of the pier), but with a little tweaking, I got some results that I liked. Check out some more pictures from the night here: Flickr Set: La Jolla (5-2-2008).

Overall, the point of my post is this: if you can imagine a picture that you really want to take, be creative about how to take it. Whether that means using different resources to figure it out like me or simply traveling to a new location, try to find a way to figure it out.

Note: To my La Jolla friends, I believe this will happen again in early August (May 2nd was approximately 50 days before the Summer Solstice (June 20th), so I figure this should happen again 50 days after the Solstice).

Coloring Smoke

Yesterday I posted an article (Photographing Smoke) about taking pictures of smoke. This article will explain how to add color to your smoke pictures. This was the picture I ended with yesterday:



1. Open your picture file in Photoshop (or a similar program).
2. Create a new layer.
3. Use the brush tool to paint colors over your smoke in a new layer (color can be applied in other ways too; try using the gradient tool to fade from one color to another).



4. Apply a Gaussian Blur to your color layer (to blend the colors together).



5. Set the color layer's blend mode to Color (you can also try Soft Light, Overlay, or any other mode for a variety of color styles).



Feel free to experiment with combinations of colors, coloring techniques, and blend modes. And try inverting the final product. Here are some of mine:





The above is inverted without adding color.



The above is using a circular rainbow gradient.

Again, you can see the rest of my Smoke set on Flickr.com.

Photographing Smoke

One thing I've been doing a lot lately is photographing smoke. I think it makes some really interesting abstract shapes, especially when you get a really simple shape in the smoke. And it's not all that hard to do; it just takes a little patience.

Ideally, you should have a camera with flash, manual focus, and shutter speed control. If you don't have some of those features, you can probably still take these kind of pictures, but it might be a little harder to do.

Additionally, you'll need a stick of incense (or something similar that will continuously produce smoke without a flame), and it needs to be dark outside, preferably with little wind.

First, set your camera to use the flash, then set the manual focus to roughly two feet. Next, light the incense and let some smoke build up. Hold the incense at the same distance as your focus (in this case, about 2 feet away). Try taking a picture of the smoke against the night sky (so you have a solid black background). If your picture is out of focus, move the incense closer or further away. If it's too dark or bright, try to adjust your shutter speed to allow more or less light. For my smoke pictures, my settings are generally:

Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Try moving the incense around to make different shapes or patterns. Move the incense up and down to make smoke rings. Experiment and have fun with it.

If you're like me, you'll end up with a bunch of really bad pictures, and a few really good looking ones. So I recommend taking a lot of pictures when trying this.



Check out the rest of my Smoke set on Flickr.com. If you try to take some pictures like this, leave me a comment; let me know how it goes and show me some examples.

In my next post, I'll describe how to add some color to these pictures using Adobe Photoshop or similar software.