Oil Rig at Sunrise

[Sleepy_Sentry]

Got up early to shoot this oil rig outside my house. This is my first time shooting during a sunrise and getting the exposure correct proved to be difficult.

Looking at the middle of the photo, it is impossible to see where the ground ends and the water begins so I'm thinking its underexposed. But at the same time, exposing the trees and ground would mean adding too much light to the center of interest. Any thoughts on how to balance this out or did I do a good job?

 

[Sleepy_Sentry]

Bump.

 

[teneighty23]

i like it as is, the silhouette effect works well, and keeps emphasis on the Rig, nice shot!

 

[Big Mike]

Looking at the middle of the photo, it is impossible to see where the ground ends and the water begins so I'm thinking its underexposed. But at the same time, exposing the trees and ground would mean adding too much light to the center of interest. Any thoughts on how to balance this out or did I do a good job?

In photography, there is something called 'dynamic range' or 'exposure latitude'. This is the range of tones that can be captured in one exposure. Certain film types have a different latitude than others. Black & White film has a much bigger latitude than slide film, for example. Digital cameras are getting better, but I don't think they are up to B&W film just yet, but with good editing, you can help that.

So when you have a scene like this, the tonal range can exceed the dynamic range of the camera. Or, you may not want the brights to be so bright, so with the exposure you want, it leaves the shadows without any detail.
As photographers, we have to choose what is most important to us, and expose for that...like you did here. It's was common to bracket your shots (several with different exposures).

Now, since we know that we can only capture a certain range in one exposure...we can take more than one exposure and then use software to combine the exposures into a single image with a Higher Dynamic Range (HDR).

 

[pugnacious33]

I like this alot. I think it would be good also if you cropped some of the dead space from the top and place the horizon in the center (even though that is against the "rules").