Orange Sunset

It seemed to be a good afternoon for a sunset shot at Grado Pineta, tide was expected very low and the sun was brilliant in the sky when I left home. I still had to try the K-1 with the big stopper and I planned to shot the low tide water with very long times to obtain a very strong silk effect. So I packed the backpack with all the filters: littler stopper, GNDs and polarizer in addition to the big stopper. I arrived at the beach more than one hour before the sunset to explore the shoreline. I expected to find a few boats in the middle between the beach and the sea but I found only some boats run ashore in the mud and a few small red buoys tied together. The tide was extremely low and I had the first signs that something was different than usual when crossing the 3 km bridge connecting Grado to mainland, I could see a large number of herons, white and gray, eating in the lagoon.

When I met my friend Andrea, it was almost the sunset time and I wasn’t able to find a good location for a wide-angle shot. Too much mud was revealed by the low tide in the foreground and the background wasn’t interesting at all. Fortunately I brought a telephoto zoom with me and going to an elevated point I was able to frame the last blade of sun and a white heron with a whole reflection on the water. I made dozens of shots but only a few of them have the whole reflection because the heron was continuously moving in its search for food.