Lake Tahoe Sunrise Photo Shot From A Kayak (and a bit of how-to)

Last week I went on a fun little sunrise kayak photo adventure out on Lake Tahoe. This was my favorite "keeper" shot from the morning so I thought I'd talk a bit more about it. The tiny little tree growing out of a crack in the boulder is a great subject matter in my opinion. It is at a location that is pretty much impossible to shoot from the land since accessing it would mean you would have to trespass on private property. A kayak is the perfect tool to photograph this little tree as a bigger motorboat would not fit back in this area, and you would probably destroy the prop on boulders just under the surface if you tried. I love shooting from my kayak and I talk a bit about my kayak in this @dtube video I posted last week: VIDEO

This image was photographed with a Canon 5DS R and a 16-35mm lens set at 16mm. It was a handheld shot since using a tripod on a moving kayak would pretty much be useless. I used a shutter speed of 1/200 second, nice and fast for a handheld shot. The aperture was f2.8, a very wide aperture that lets in a lot of light. I also used a Canon 580EX II flash to light up the tree as well as the boulders both above and below the water surface. This all led to needing an ISO of 400. No graduated neutral density or polarizing filters were used.

There was actually more pink color to the sky a bit more to the left. However, that composition wasn't working for me so I went with this one as my favorite shot of the morning. It's not the most vibrant sunrise I have shot but I think the little bit of color adds a nice extra element of interest.

What are your first thoughts when you see this photo and little tree?

Thank you for looking and reading!

Scott Thompson
Scott Shots Photography



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