I set out for Chimney Rock in the dark before dawn, and turned back towards the Coastguard Boathouse in time for sunrise. From above, the scene was lit with a golden light. There was a stiff wind blowing, so I set my tripod up as close to the ground as possible for maximum stability.

The foreground was still in deep shadow and the rising sun was lighting the cliffs of Drakes Bay with a strong and golden light. This situation cried out for HDR.

I shot eight exposures, at shutter speeds between 1/2 a second and 1/60 of a second. All exposures were made at f/8 and ISO 200, with a 24mm focal length.

In Photoshop, I first processed the set of images to combine them using the Nik HDR Efex Pro plugin. I wasn’t entirely happy with the results, so I proceeded to add detail to both the foreground and background by adding layers on top of the automated HDR version. Each of these layers was processed from the individual frames I had captured.

If you look closely, you can see a workshop participant with camera and tripod on the near side of the Coastguard Boathouse.

Related image: From Sunset to Sunrise.