I mentioned in an earlier article how much I loved Seville. However, what I didn’t mention was that Seville was also one of the most frustrating places I’ve ever been from a photography perspective. Personally, I love heading out and photographing places at first light. I feel like dawn has a way of bringing a whole new light to the world. Unfortunately, I found out after waking up at 5 in the morning, that in Seville the plazas close at night and do not open in time for dawn. On the morning when I took the photo below, I woke up and hiked across the city for 30 minutes only to find that the gates to Plaza Espana, my target photo location, were closed until 8 in the morning. As a result, I had to improvise. My instincts told me to head for the water. Trying to get to the waterfront by dawn I jogged the kilometer or so to arrive at this scene. Although I’d still like the chance to photograph Plaza Espana at dawn, this photo ended up being one of my favourite from Europe, so I can’t exactly complain.
How I Got this Shot
Nothing really special went into shooting this image aside from waking up really early. I will, however, say this. If you plan on shooting photography in low light, and want a really sharp image you’ll want to do a couple things to ensure the sharpness. 1) Set your camera up on a tripod, 2) set your camera so that the mirror is locked up, 3) turn your lenses image stabilization OFF (if the camera is stable the stabilization system will actually cause a vibration), 4) if you have live mode, zoom in and make sure the focus is really sharp; I manually focus these images, and 5) take the photo using a remote trigger or at least the camera’s timer so pushing the shutter doesn’t cause shake. If you do all that, you should get a really sharp image like the one above.