On a recent visit to the Cincinnati Art Museum, we discovered this group of mannequins huddled in a room. I imagine that they were being prepared for an exhibit.
Finding them was a photo opportunity that we couldn’t pass up. As much as we enjoyed the museum, these mannequins turned out to be my favorite subject of the day.
Monday morning, I met with my boss in Cincinnati. He lives in Lexington, KY and I live in Springfield, OH. Cincinnati is half way between us and provides the opportunity for us to meet without driving all day.
We planned to meet at 9:30 but I woke up at my normal time around 5:00AM and decided to just get up and go see the sunrise from Eden Park on Mt. Adams.
When I arrived, there were already two other photographers sitting on benches huddling, in the cold, behind their tripods. We all acknowledged each other and then returned to silence. Dawn is not an occasion to speak, it is a time to sit in wonder and awe. Talking and chatting can come later.
I arrived in time to experience the last of the twilight before the sun peaked it's orange face above the horizon. While I was there, I watched a river barge silently navigate around the bend. I'll bet that it was loaded with coal and headed for one of the power plants down river. I wondered if they experienced the dawn every day and did they really see it or was it just another morning to them?
Every weekday morning, I drive east into Columbus for work. Along the way, I make a point of anticipating and watching the sunrise in front of me. Every morning I think of how lucky that I have a great job and that it allows me to witness the spectacle that is dawn.
I've gotten a lot of great comments and questions about the Cincinnati Sunrise series and thought you might appreciate knowing how I planned for the shoot.
The original idea was formed during one of my many return trips from Atlanta. Inevitably, I would end up going through Cincinnati at night and always thought that the view of the city at night was spectacular. I would think about how it would look at sunset and sunrise. Being a morning person, I naturally tended to gravitate towards the sunrise version.
One of the most common questions that I have recieved was 'How did you know where to go?' I don't know Cincinnati that well and finding a place to shoot the sunrise with so little time to experiment seemed daunting. When I don't know an area, I turn to google maps and this time around Google was able to nail the location for me. I use google maps quite often and it has proven to be pretty reliable.
I knew that Mt. Adams, to the east, of downtown had great views of the city and the river. If I wanted to catch the sunrise reflected off of the buildings, Mt. Adams would have been a great choice. I wanted to capture the sun rising behind the city, so Mt. Adams was out. I did know that there was a ridgeline to the west of downtown and started looking in that direction.
Zooming in and switching to terrain view, I could see that there were two parks on the ridge to the west of downtown that might fit the bill. Wilson Common was closer to the city but, Mt. Echo had the Ohio river between the park and the city. To me, Mt. Echo seemed like the better location. To check, I searched google images for photos from the park and was able to confirm that the park had the perfect view.
The next step was to nail down the sunrise itself. To do that I turned to a wonderful and free program called The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE).
If you are not familiar with TPE, it is a nifty little program that gives you all of the information that you could possibly about the moon and sun. You get times and directions to both the setting and rising sun/moon. In addition, you get the times for all three morning and evening twilights. We all grew up thinking that if you wanted to find the sunrise, you turned due east and there it was. In actuality, due east is not really correct. The direction varies with the date and location.
TPE uses the Google Maps API and draws lines from the location you chose to show where the sun and moon rise and set. Following the lines from Mt. Echo, I was able to see that the line for the sunrise bisected the downtown Cincinnati area. Perfect. As an added bonus, TPE showed that the moon would also be in the east during the sunrise.
So, before I even left my house, I was able to know the following:
1. That Mt. Echo was in the perfect location and had a great view of downtown Cincinnati
2. That the sun would rise behind the city
3. The time of sunrise and twilight
4. That the moon would also be in the eastern sky during sunrise
At this point, I was comfortable about the time and location. Another web search informed me that the weather would also be good. All that remained was to prepare and pack my gear. Here is what I brought along:
Sony a55v body
18-55mm lens
70-210mm lens
Heavy tripod
Remote shutter release
Small flashlight
Spare battery
Spare memory card
With those items packed in my back pack, I was ready to go and I had a reasonable expectation that the shoot would be a success. The next time you are searching for a location for an image that you have in mind, look on the web. Check google maps, the weather and google images to find the perfect site for you. You will be surprised at how well prepared you can be without even leaving your couch.
I recently celebrated my birthday by treating myself to the sunrise from Mt. Echo west of Cincinnati. Mt. Echo is 9 minutes away, so I had to get up at four in the morning to be on location with pleny of time to set up my equipment. Afer seeing the resulting images, I have no regrets about waking up so early. The view was spectacular and the sunrise did not disappoint.
I created a few shots with my 70-210mm lens but most of the images were shot using my 18-55mm. I liked the wider angle for shots from this distance. To steady the shots, I used my heavy duty tripod and a remote shutter release.
As the sun rose behind the city, the buildings were silhouetted against the light and reflected on the surrounding buildings. I managed to see a gorgeous light show that morning. I continued shooting until the sun was well above the skyline. Along the way, I shot a series of images that I will eventually stitch together to form a panorama. I'll be sure to let you have a peek at the results when I am finished. Meanwhile, enjoy the sunrise over Cincinnati.
tim mcmurdo 