I was fortunate enough to visit this wild, spectacular part of the Victorian coastline for a couple of days in the autumn of 2013. Being such a brief visit, I was keen to make the most of my opportunities, so I rose very early on my first morning.
The image above, “Great Ocean Glow”, shows the amazing scene that greeted me!
With just a couple of days at my disposal, the area around the famous Twelve Apostles was a ‘no-brainer’ destination on day one. The decision to stay overnight at Port Campbell was a good one, as it’s just a short drive to several of the Great Ocean Road’s most iconic spots.
Leaving from Port Campbell well over an hour before sunrise, and driving towards the east, I could already see the first signs of a deep orange glow in the sky. The light was filtered by a thin layer of smoke hanging in the still morning air after bushfire hazard reduction burns across western Victoria.
Arriving at the Twelve Apostles visitor centre I was surprised at how empty the car park was. Along with sunset, surely this must be the perfect time to visit? Well, at least for photography anyway.
I hurried across to the lookout, which I had all to myself at this stage. As the sky became brighter I chose this view for my composition, looking towards the two limestone stacks off the beach below Gibson’s Steps.
The clouds soon radiated an intense glow, bouncing soft, magic light down onto the landscape and ocean.
This image comes from a single exposure taken five minutes before sunrise, using a combination of Lee neutral density filters to balance the light. A narrow strip just above the horizon on the left was the brightest part of the frame, the position of the not quite risen sun being just outside the frame to the left.
First, I placed a 0.9 hard GND (3 stops) across the top third of the frame to hold back the bright sky. This did a pretty good job, but still left a slightly overexposed strip just above the cliff tops. I managed to control this nicely, quickly sliding in an inverted 0.3 hard GND (1 stop), i.e. with the dark side on the bottom. This made an impromptu ‘strip filter’, running a darker strip across the centre part of the image.
The bright, natural colours captured were so rich and intense that I had little to do in post-processing the RAW file, except for some routine and very small adjustments to white balance, tone curves and mid-tone contrast. In this version I also made a slight boost in saturation of a few colours, and some local exposure adjustments. I was purposely conservative in the processing to keep the colours looking natural and believable.
Looking back over my shoulder to the west, the sky was also very colourful, so I came home with a few nice shots of the softly lit coast in the opposite direction; like the one below:
It was great to see the fresh trails in the sand from the colony of penguins, just departed for their day’s fishing in the Southern Ocean. This was such a memorable sunrise, one that I’m sure I will long remember, as will the small group of lucky tourists who braved the cold conditions.
So, I now have Victoria represented on the Girt By Sea Photography website! Visit my print shop to see more images.
Image Specs
“Great Ocean Glow”: Sony DSLR-A850, Sony Zeiss 16-35mm @ 35mm. ISO 100. 13 secs at f/14.0, Lee Filters ND Grads 0.9h (3 stops) & inverted 0.3h (1 stop). Cable shutter release. Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod with 496RC2 ball head.
