Pink Granite Pinnacles and Bird, Autumn Twilight, Victoria, Australia

(Click image to enlarge)

I have previously photographed this location several times, always late in the morning on miserable winter days, with cold gale force winds, occasional raindrops, and directionless light. The wind gusts move your body and vibrate any tripod fiercely. With your ears covered to protect them from the cold, it's loud. Nothing except the howling wind and roar of the ocean can be heard. The noise becomes a bit disorienting after a while, and it takes a while to capture an image. The wind never stops, but there are always a few widely spaced moments during which the worst of its ferocity subsides. Timing is everything. So is leaning heavily on the tripod during the exposure, which must be long enough to capture wave motion and short enough to avoid blurring stationary objests like the pinnacles and rocks. Doing this many times over a couple of hours provides a selection of photographs. Some of them might be impeccably sharp in the right places with the waves well positioned.

Capturing photographs from this highest bit of ocean-facing shoreline in the conditions I've described is difficult. It's also exhillerating. Hours pass as if they were minutes because you're always occupied. The waves must be watched to capture a photograph at the right moment. The tide must be watched too because it changes the behavior of the waves. A rising tide is optimal, low, high, and falling tides are not. Through all of this you've got to keep your camera and tripod from blowing over. When the photography is done there's a sense of accomplishment for having endured the tempest, and there may be a reward of some good photos. I've never seen anyone else taking pictures in those conditions, so the resulting photographs, if not good, will at least be unique.

Late in the autumn I decided to capture a sunrise or sunset photograph of the pinnacles. The weather forecast showed a couple of nice days coming up. Since photographing a sunset in heavy clouds and rain doesn't work well, I picked May 11, 2026. Then I discovered that the cape I'd be standing on lies between the rising sun the pinnacles so only a sunset photograph was possible. Next I discovered that the pinnacles would be exactly backlit at this time of year. The photograph could only work well with a bunch of clouds to catch some warm light and reflect some of it back onto the face of the pinnacles. When the day came the forcast predicted crystal clear skies, light winds, and comfortable temperatures. All but the last were detrimental to what I wanted in a photograph. I decided to go anyway and hope for the best, but the best was not to come.

After a morning of mediocre photos, and a fantastic chicken and mushroom pie, I was only a seven minute drive plus less than an hour walk from the pinnacles. I almost drove home instead but a little voice that I should'nt have trusted told me to follow through.

As the sun touched the horizon it was a searing point of intense light that would ruin one's eyes or any photograph that included it. When the sun disappeared below the horizon, the light softened and the sky turned warm in color. Unfortunately the sky was still far too bright relative to the inky black shadows on the front side of the pinnacles. No camera could capture that much dynamic range.

I rejected a passing thought of using multiple exposure HDR (High Dynamic Range) processing to solve the problem. Wave movement between exposures would make it difficult, but my disgust with the fakery and deception that has become widely accepted in photography has more do do with it. To be clear, HDR is not intrinsically deceptive, but seeing details in shadows that couldn't be seen in person isn't exactly realistic or honest, and it's not the straight photography I wanted to be doing that evening. I'd get the image in a single exposure or do without it.

There have been many times I've enjoyed doing photography in bad circumstances. This was not one of them. I got to the location early to search for the right vantage point and then waited. The sun's slow movement produced the only change in the scene. The time dragged. I was bored. The sun was so bright it was difficult to check its progress toward the horizon. To kill time I found other things to watch, like a bird atop the pinnacles. At least I wasn't freezing and being blown around by wind gusts, but that may have been better.

My last resort to extract a reasonable photograph from this debacle was to eliminate the sky completely and use only its dimmer reflection from the water's surface as the photograph's background. By now the sun had set roughly a half hour ago. The contrast between the shaded front of the pinnacles and the background was lower but still ridiculous, and the situation was no longer improving. Exposure times were also becomming very long. I was out of time. I captured this last photograph, packed up, and started the very dark walk back to my vehicle.

The resulting photograph is technically quite good, and a realistic interpretation of how the scene looked in person that evening. Like the photograph, the scene was nice but not very compelling. Regardless, the photograph is a great result given the stupidity of the attempt. Surprisingly, in spite of the comfortable conditions, there was not another soul in the area when I captured the photograph, so it's unique too!

Perhaps the most remarkable element in this photograph is the bird atop the leftmost pinnacle. It obviously remained motionless during the entire 15 second exposure. You'll have to look at the larger version of the photograph to see it.

Of special note: Like all images on this website, this image was adjusted using a color managed workflow with a high quality monitor calibrated to the sRGB standard. sRGB is is the universal color space used across digital devices, the web, and social media. The profile is embedded in each image so the browser can display them accurately, assuming the viewer is using a properly calibrated monitor.

By accident I discovered that the image displayed on the same monitor using the latest Chrome browser is in close agreement, but ithe latest Firefox browser renders it noticeably warmer. The Safari browser on an iPad held next to that monitor also renders it warmer and is in close agreement with the Firefox browser. These differences would apply to all images on this or any other website. There's no telling what anyone sees when viewing images online.