I’ve spent many a sunrise shooting Mahon Pool and the Jack Vanny Memorial Park just around the corner from Maroubra Beach, but have been itching to try and capture the northern end of the beach itself at this time of day.
Starting with a bit of homework the night before, I checked the forecast for some indication of wind speed and direction, cloud cover, tidal and swell information, sunrise time, and the exact position of the sunrise. Having this information can be a great time saver when choosing a location; although I must admit that I often change my destination on the run as the sky lights up during an early morning drive towards the coast!
It was good to see cloud overhead on my way to the beach as per the forecast. Almost too much of it in fact, but arrival at the coast confirmed a band of clear sky beneath the clouds to the east, promising some colour in the sky.
Importantly for this location the breeze and swell were quite light, as this part of the beach is very exposed, and with any sort of onshore wind would not be a great spot.
There is an easily accessible outcrop of rocks surrounded by sand at the northern end of the beach, offering both a good vantage point and an interesting foreground. Especially when using a wide-angle lens I’ll look for some objects in the foreground to give some perspective and lead in lines, and this rocky area offers exactly that.
Some of the rocks are dotted with intriguing round hollows (imagine bitten-off chunks of Aero chocolate bar!), and there is enough weed and moss to add a soft green hue. There are some shallow rock pools, and plenty of channels around the rocks to capture water movement.
I headed straight for the rocks and set up my equipment at least half an hour before sunrise, experimenting as usual with several compositions and different filter configurations.
With a defined horizon and darkish sky I chose one of my favoured combinations of the 0.6 GND hard, stacked together with the 0.6 GND soft to reduce some sun glare off the water and to control the exposure of the bright white water in the foreground.
Again I found that exposures around 0.5 to 0.8 seconds were bringing just the amount of water movement that I wanted.
It was difficult to concentrate on photography at times, as there was a large pod of dolphins performing some acrobatics just past the breakers, watched on by the large contingent of early morning surfers. The beach was also busy with a parade of runners, dog walkers, swimmers, fitness junkies, etc, even at this early hour.
The image above, taken about 8 minutes before sunrise, stood out as my favourite of the morning. Here’s the rest of my ‘Top 5’ for the morning in no particular order …
Visit the Maroubra gallery on the Girt By Sea Photography website for more images from this spectacular part of Sydney’s coastline.