Apart from the lack of crowds, one of the distinctive things about low season in Positano is that the days are quite short. As the late great photographer, Galen Rowell, once said that "You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn't waste either." But it does make it easier when the sunrises and sunsets are at pleasant hours of the day. There are no excuses! Standing on the western end of the main Positano beach, you look eastward down the Amalfi Coast to catch the sunrise. The clouds only accentuate the beautiful colours of the sky in the sunrise. A 3 stop GND and a relatively slow shutter speed meant that a tripod was an important part of ensuring a sharp image.
Like the other towns on Italy's Amalfi Coast Positano stretches from its beautiful coastline up into the surrounding mountains. Standing on the beach, the signature dome of the church of Santa Maria Assunta is framed between an enclave in the ridge-line of the mountains. Buildings stretch much of the way up. This image was made a few minutes after sunset, giving a love even colour across the buildings and hills. A tripod is an important tool in this type of imagery, as the relatively low shutter speed (0.4 of a second) would make a sharp image difficult to achieve if handholding.
I like a good silhouette, but find this type of photography to be challenging. I think that's because there needs to be a healthy balance between light and shadow (balanced light), strong features, colour and negative space. After making some sunset photos on the beach during our first evening in this beautiful Amalfi Coast town, I noticed this group of people down towards the water's edge. I moved to frame the main group with the sea behind them, and with the strong orange colours in the background. I then waited to get some interesting poses, taking multiple exposures as the group moved around and enjoyed the beach. In the off season (we visited late November) there are few crowds, so finding enough people while leaving plenty of negative space wasn't too challenging. Had there been larger crowds I would have to have framed the image differently. The strong contrast between light and dark was still a factor, even after sunset, so I made use of a 2 stop GND to manage the colour balance. With this the shutter speed was still quite fast at 1/50th, so getting a sharp exposure wasn't too challenging. The use of tripod still helped.
