Fishermen at sunset

Fishermen at sunset – An unexpected shot…

Fishermen at sunset
Fishermen at sunset

I’d prepared, hoped, expected, this shot with the fishermen! Nevertheless, it is an unexpected shot, which I particularly love …

The day was perfect and ideal. The sun was slowly going down, on the Follonica (GR) beach, just in line with the breakwater, where, at that time, there is usually someone fishing. I had spotted this shot a few days before, but without luck. I begin to prepare all my stuff, on a beach that is slowly emptying. I found the right place, the right distance, the right angle. I have to lie down, almost on the shoreline. Maybe it’s better if I move a little further… I don’t want to get the camera wet… ok, here it’s perfect. Two fishermen also arrived, fumbling with their fishing rods. I wait…

We are almost there…

Is not long, I check the camera settings, I do some test shots. Everything is ready. But just at the climax, when the final composition of the scene is just a few minutes away, the sun decides to hide behind what seemed to me, due to the backlight, only a slight haze, and instead, it was a low cloud on the skyline!

And now…?… The shot is gone, I think… I wait a while, hoping that it will happen I don’t know exactly what, but then I decide I’ll try again tomorrow. I get up, turn off the camera, take my towel and start walking home, throwing a last dejected look at the lost scene.

Then, the breakthrough…

But just at that moment, the unhoped happens! The sun decides to give itself in all its splendor, literally piercing the cloud and coming back to shine in front of me, lit with a fire-red like never before! But there’s no more time! The stretch of sky between the cloud and the skyline is really small, maybe I won’t be able to shoot it anyway as I wanted…but I have to try! I jump quickly on the ground, take the camera in my hand, don’t even check the settings, frame it…. and click……one,…two…, three clicks…. In the end, there will be 7 shots in total, only this one of which is the one with the whole solar disc. In the previous one it is still partially covered by the cloud, in the next one it has already started to go behind the Piombino hill.

Even the fishermen, in the end, did their duty. They made themselves ready for the unexpected appointment!

More pictures available on my Photo gallery.

Technical details: Follonica (GR), Senzuno beach , 07 August 2008, 20:22
Panasonic Lumix FZ-18, 82mm, f/4.2 – 1/250 sec ISO 100

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