On Location Photographing A Sunrise in Ghent
I have been sitting on this post since last year, never quite getting around to publishing it but at last, it is finally out in the wild.
In the Summer of 2019, I travelled to the city of Ghent in Belgium with my family to explore what I consider one of Europe’s best-kept secrets. Since falling in love with the chocolate-box city of Bruges during a trip the year before, we were left wanting to see more of what Belgium has to offer.
I won’t be covering the entire trip in this post as I have already done so in a previous blog which you can find here: On Location | Photographing Ghent. Instead, this post will talk about my early morning shoot during which I was lucky enough to capture a beautiful sunrise across this fine city.
Although this trip to Ghent was a family city-break, I still made a point of getting a sunrise shoot in by heading out early on my own to try to photograph the city while looking its best, during the best light and with fewer people around. Getting out earlier gives me a few hours to explore the deserted city, photograph away and have the best compositions to myself.
Contrary to my daytime setup where I had with me the smaller Fujifilm X-T30 camera, for this shoot, I took with me the larger XT2 workhorse which I use for my main landscape/cityscape work. Normally, I wouldn’t have so much gear with me when on a city-break but as we travelled to Ghent by car, I had the luxury of taking as much camera gear as I wanted.
Photographing a Sunrise in Ghent
Before visiting Ghent, I researched the city for photo ideas and had spotted a composition similar to this looking across the bridge towards Saint Nicholas' Church, so, when I arrived in the city, I headed to this spot first. I wanted to incorporate the ornate streetlights that lined the bridge so I looked around for the best composition as I waited for the sky to get a little lighter but wary not to wait too long just in case the lights were turned off before I had the shot in the bag.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 18mm | 2.6 Seconds | f/11 | ISO200
From the other side of the Bridge and with my wide-angle 10-24mm attached, I managed to capture a few more shots, including this view down the River Leie just as the sky came alive with these fantastic sunrise colours. This stretch of river and between St Michael’s Bridge and Grasbrug is one of the most picturesque areas of the city and where I spent most of the morning with my camera soaking in all of the history during these peaceful early hours.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/6th Second | f/7.1 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 25mm | 1/3rd Second | f/11 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 18mm | 0.5 Seconds | f/11 | ISO200
Once done on the bridge, I wandered down to the water’s edge. Having noticed how the disorderly buildings looked as they lined the river and with the 10-24mm lens still attached, I had a go at photographing them front-on and capture some of those great reflections at the same time. Although the light in the sky was amazing, it was all coming from behind the buildings so I had some dynamic range issues to deal with in post-production but the excellent XT2 dealt with it well and I was able to recover a lot of detail from the underexposed buildings. I also struggled to align the composition properly because the building to the left of the clock tower is leaning to the right making the entire scene appear wonky so the final image isn’t quite as good as I was hoping for but I know there is potential there if I visit again, maybe at the other end of the day so the light hits the front of the buildings.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 11.5mm | 1/12th Second | f/11 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 18mm | 1/8th Second | f/7.1 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 55mm | 1/17th Second | f/7.1 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 36mm | 1/400th Second | f/3.6 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 31mm | 1/1700th Second | f/5.6 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 17mm | 1/400th Second | f/8 | ISO200
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 30mm | 1/340th Second | f/8 | ISO200
When the last of the sunrise colours were gone, I spent some time wandering back along the river and around St Michael’s Bridge taking more photos during the morning golden hour. I had a great time capturing the city while continuing to play with the lead-in lines and reflections along the water’s edge.
If I had one regret after the shoot, it’s that I didn’t take any long exposure photos during this sunrise. In reality, if I had attempted to spend the time to set up the kit, get the filters ready etc, I might have come away with nothing so it was probably the right decision and given that the city is such a short drive from Calais, I can always come back to this charming city and try another time.
It wasn't too much longer before the best of the light was gone which was my cue to leave and meet my family for breakfast at the hotel feeling pretty happy I had a few good shots on my memory card.
I hope you enjoyed this On Location photo travel blog and please get in touch if you have any questions.
Cheers
Trevor