As I drove back from Caves Beach yesterday morning, I was on the lookout for something different to shoot. I had watched the moon set over Lake Macquarie on the way out and thought that I would have to come back to shoot that. There was no time yesterday. I also only noticed this pier on the way back anyway. This morning I was determined to get up again.

Sunrise was at 6:42 am but moonset was only at about 7:15am. It was never going to be as good as yesterday from a light balance point of view but It was just good to be out again.

Having said all this, as I pulled out of Madison drive at about 6am, I looked East and saw that the sun had lit up the sky like a furnace over the sea. It was hard to ignore in pursuit of this. Maybe I should have been at the beach, who knows. I love what I got nevertheless.

With the sun rising behind me the sky had already started to brighten making the exposure a little tricky as the sun hadn't yet hit the pier. I used a Graduated ND filter to balance the light

Camera: Canon 5d Miii Lens: 16-35mm II F/2.8 Shutter speed: 3.2sec Aperture: f/22 ISO: 50 Filter: Polariser and Cokin 2 stop graduated ND filter