Celebrity Apex – Ft. Lauderdale, FL [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]I HAVE written a few times here about the benefits shooting from the upper deck(s) of cruise ships. I was reminded of this on our recent, New Year’s Cruise in the Caribbean. The view from up there gets you a nice, usually clean, composition from an elevated viewpoint. There are times when you also get to see places from a unique vantage point. This perspective often allows you to clear an image of foreground clutter or arrange foreground elements more to your liking. At the same time, there are challenges. The primary challenge is that you are often on a moving object, which means your shooting perspective is constantly changing. Usually, if you are shooting in daylight, the motion isn’t a huge challenge to sharpness. But it is hard to compose with a constantly changing view. Of course, objects that are further away and either off the rear or the front of the ship are less challenging.
Celebrity Apex Sunset St. Kitts, West Indies [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]ANOTHER THING that I have commented on a few times is the ubiquitous sunset shot. For the most part, the same commentary holds true with sunrise shots. But because of the effort required to get up and “be there” well before the sunrise occurs, only a few of us ever venture out to record them. But in our “smart” phone camera culture, sunset shots really are “a dime a dozen,” these days. My most common critiques focus on the placement of the horizon and the foreground (or lack of) elements in these images.
Sunset – Celebrity Apex – Caribbean [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]TWO THINGS about the horizon. First is a tilting horizon. It is probably the single most common fault in sunset and water photographs. It is an easy thing to overlook. Indeed, just last week, I posted a quick phone shot on Facebook and only later realized I was guilty of my own criticism. Most of the time, I catch that. But when we don’t pay attention, the viewer sees the horizon tilting. And when the subject is a body of water, I always want to ask: how does that lake or ocean not drain until it is empty? 🙂
A tilting horizon is probably the most common fault in sunset and water photographs
THE SECOND thing, though, is more subtle. But it is something that is easy to control if you pay attention to it, either when making the shot or later in post-processing through cropping. That is the placement of the horizon. The natural tendency is for us to place the horizon directly in the middle of the frame. There are a few times when that is an effective placement. But the vast majority of the time, it is not. Centered horizons tend to make an image look static and lack energy and depth. Placement of the horizon either above or below the horizontal center of the image usually makes it more dynamic. My own treatment depends on several different factors. The first is whether I want to emphasize the foreground, or the background in an image. If there is a dramatic sky, I will generally show more of the sky and place the horizon lower in the image. If there is something in foreground that I want to show or emphasize, or if (as is common) there is a drab, boring sky, then I am more likely to move the horizon up. Another reason for a higher horizon might be to have the viewer look further “back” in the image, giving the feeling of depth.
Sunset – Celebrity Apex – Caribbean [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]WHEN MAKING water-based sunset images, though, the things I commented on above come into play. We see so, so, many of these images. An awful lot of them, however, in addition to suffering from crooked horizons, also have another issue. They are often just uninteresting. Why? It relates to the points made above about drab skies and/or drab foregrounds. That bright, orange orb is mesmerizing. In the moment, it is all that we see and what we mentally record. But if every sunset was exactly the same and was just an orange ball bisected by the (true) horizon, they would get boring. Fortunately, there is rarely a sunset that is exactly the same as the one the night before. If we want to make compelling compositions though, we need to be observant about the ambient conditions. I have previously said here that a beautiful sunset with nothing but a vast expanse of water in the foreground is usually lacking. There has to be something of interest in that foreground.I blogged about this issue back in 2017, noting that:
my own criteria for sunset shots are different from many of the shots I commonly see (mostly on Facebook). To me, for interest, there needs to be something more than water, sky and sun (or light) in the shot most of the time. I emphasize “most” of the time, because I think there are occasions when the sky alone (or the water reflection) may be the true subject and any other objects in the photo may detract from this. But not most of the time.
IF I am standing on land (and occasionally when there is an object(s) of interest in the foreground when shooting from a cruise ship) I will follow my own suggestion. But from the cruise ship deck, it is often a challenge to get something photographically interesting into the foreground of a sunset shot. Sometimes it is just impossible. But there is almost always something you can use. The second image here is an example of “finding” something in the foreground to give some interest and perspective. In this case, although the clouds created a dramatic sunset, I really wanted to get some of the water (and the reflection of light) in the image. I aimed my “camera” (nearly all the images in this post were made with my Samsung Galaxy S21 “smart” phone) downward enough to include some of waves being pushed by the stern of the ship. It fills the otherwise empty expanse of dark water, giving just enough interest in the foreground to frame things more effectively. Similarly, the agitation of the salt water by the ship’s screws create a photogenic trailing “wake” behind the ship in the other two photographs. If you can include that in your image, it is an easy “foreground object” to take advantage of. The aqua-blue cast in the (what we would normally think would be) “white” bubbly wake is caused by something in the salt water that creates that blue color when agitated. It is not a reflection, or an incorrect white balance in the camera.
Sunset – Celebrity Apex – Caribbean [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]IN THE fourth image the red-orange reflection on the water following the wake to the horizon created my foreground interest. I only had to choose how much of it to include in the frame. I liked the long, leading line into the sunset, so I chose a vertical composition to include more of the reflected wake. The fifth image is an example of my comments above about excluding foreground which really doesn’t add to the photograph. In this case, it is a dark, relatively uninteresting expanse of water reaching all the way to the horizon. My choice to (mostly) exclude it was governed by that consideration, but also in a very big part by the dramatic clouds in the sky above the sunset. The sunset is undoubtedly the subject of the photograph, but I wanted the eye to move through the orb, and up into that dramatic sky. It is what makes it not “just another sunset” in my view.
Late afternoon sun – St. Kitts, West Indies [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]BEING AT sea on a cruise ship in the Caribbean for 7 days gave us many opportunities to catch the sunset. As you can see, there was never one night that was the same as the previous. We did have one cloudy night at the end, and one later port stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but otherwise, we were on deck for the sunset every evening. You can also see from the early (above) and later (below) images made from very similar perspectives as we were docked, and later departing our stop in St. Kitts, West Indies, the effect the time of day and angle of the sun has on the color of the images. I like them both.
Just before sunset as the Celebrity Apex departs St. Kitts, West Indies [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]SUNSETS CAN be dramatic from the deck of a cruise ship, even with the lack of interesting foreground objects, with a little observation and planning. As long as you are going to be there for the sunset, it makes sense to get set up a little early and take advantage of the late afternoon sun. I was fortunate to catch golden sun lighting the colorful shore buildings of St. Kitts, with the sky in the background foretelling a golden sunset, as we pulled away from our berth. Sunsets. Caribbean. Good stuff!
Celebrity Apex St. Kitts, West Indies [Copyright Andy Richards 2024 All Rights Reserved]
LightCentric Photography Blog 
felt like I was there 😳
really very nice
pk
LOL, Paul 🙂 We sure had some beautiful sunsets!