Listening to the Inner Voice

In my last entry, I touched on the refreshing feeling of shooting with a new lens, forcing my perspective with a new visual tool. Less than 24 hours later, I found myself stagnating over shooting another seascape.

Running on little sleep, I got up for sunrise with my ritual of sticking my head out the front door looking for clouds like a groundhog looking for its shadow on groundhog day. I drove up the coast only to drive back down again. Feeling disinterested, I pulled into Four Mile, a beach just north of Santa Cruz.

I set up as usual, found some mildly interesting compositions, but after just a few minutes and only nine clicks later, I packed up the wide angle lens.

You see, I kept hearing this voice inside my head. It was compelling me to try something new. Wave panning. It is a technique where you choose a relatively slow shutter speed like 1/4 second as in the photo above, and slowly pan the camera and lens with the direction of the wave.

The success rate is very low, and exposures were tricky. But I listened to that inner voice, and this time it didn't require spending money on a new lens as I had the right tool already.

A new kind of photographic learning experience, and a technique I hope to improve upon in the future.

A Break From the Norm

When I first got serious about photography, I was an avid SCUBA diver. I dove close to 100 dives a year, most of them in the cold waters off Monterey and Carmel. I still love diving, but it has taken a back seat for the last few months as I delved deeply into long exposure landscapes shots of my local coast.

The use of remote shutter, tripod, and various filters required an entirely different skill set and technique compared to what I was accustomed to. And by no means do I profess to be an expert on either style. I hope to be the perpetual amateur, always learning and growing. I get excited thinking about what I will be able to create over the years as my experience grows and my skills improve.

So, I impulsively picked up Nikon's new 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX lens today. It essentially gives me close to the classic 50mm in a lens that can shoot pretty wide open and create some serious bokeh. I took it for a spin today on my lunch break and found some nice flowers near my work.

I found it very refreshing to shoot hand held in full sunlight with such a light little lens. It remains to be seen how much use it gets, but a break from the norm can sometimes be just what you need to grow as a photographer. I didn't have to slip and fall on any algae and wake up at 6am to get the shot either. Two BIG bonuses.

The Power of Positive Thinking

So there we were, my girlfriend Kendra and I, sitting through light mist to mild sprinkles getting wetter by the minute, and I kept hoping the clouds would break and the sun would make a dramatic appearance.

I kept telling Kendra, "maybe we'll get lucky and have some glorious sun break through". We were getting wetter. We started looking for a place to seek shelter, but to no avail.

Yet we stuck around. I'm actually quite surprised we didn't just pack it up and call it a night. There appeared to be no relief for the gloom and doom we were experiencing.

A little light crept into the horizon, a dampened yellow glow. But the rain persisted. We held out hope and I reiterated "this could turn into something really nice, if only the rain would stop".

And then it did! The skies opened, a patch of blue sky appeared, and the race was on to capture the scene.

The power of positive thinking!

I really wanted a shot looking north. One, the little offshore rock in the distance marks the south end of Hole In The Wall Beach, a spot I have grown to love and appreciate. And it just so happened that the window of light that just opened was in that general direction. Oh sweet glorious light!

I have at least two more images from tonight as we happily snapped away at the clearing in the sky as it headed south across the ocean.

Always Learning: Knowing Your Shutter Speeds

When I first started getting really interesting in seascape long exposures, I had no clue how long of a shutter speed to use. I filled many a memory card with trial and error shots (mostly errors) to determine what effect the duration of the shutter had on the appearance of the water.

I distinctly remember shooting down near Big Sur and having great success with 8 seconds to create a misty feel to the water. I remember shooting one day in Santa Cruz and using 30 seconds and was pleasantly surprised at the "glassy" feel the ocean was given from such a long shutter.

Since those early days, I have continued to learn through trial and error, but now the errors are fewer. I can now better visualize a scene and determine what shutter speed is required to get the shot I want.

In the shot above, I knew something in the close to a second would give me streaks of water long enough to cover more of the frame, but short enough to retain the detail between the white water. I still used my neutral density grad filters to hold back the sky as this hot was a solid half hour after sunrise and the sky was getting brighter. I increased my ISO 2/3 of stop to keep my aperture relatively small in order to get the depth I wanted, all while keeping the quick shutter speed to freeze the rush of water.

I am excited by all the learning, the trial and error, and the increase in successful visualization and execution. I am not a professional, but I do have goals. One of them is to always keep learning, and another is to hopefully get better. Getting out there to shoot often is one of the best ways to do this.

Chasing Light

With daylight savings time recently "jumping forward", I find myself chasing light once again. For the last couple months, sunsets have been too late for me to shoot them during my late breaks at work like I had in December and January.

Now they are just after I end my shift. So, I chased the sunset on Monday, only to have it dissolve into gray. I felt Tuesday would be the same, so I didn't even bother going somewhere to try and shoot. But as I drove home, I could tell the sunset was a winner, and I was chasing light once again.

I had my camera gear with, always important to do, and I pulled into my driveway and jogged down to the beach near my house. Not having any strong foreground elements, I shot with my telephoto lens to capture and isolate the most vivid portion of the sky. I relied on a simple composition to showcase the two contrasting colors and the silhouette of the iconic Santa Cruz coastline.

The very next morning, I anticipated a dramatic sunrise. Hey, if sunset was so intense, maybe the next morning will be special. And oh, it was. Although I was better prepared for the sunrise, I was still chasing that light. I scouted for a solid hour before the magical time that is 20-30 minutes before the actual sunrise.

I took a hard spill due to some slick green algae, and the fact that I was wearing old shoes with worn soles. You see, most of my shoes are in various states of drying out from getting wet while shooting. Central California's oceans are pretty darn frigid, and the air isn't too warm at 6am either, so barefoot or sandals are not my first choice for footwear. Anyway, onto the image. I persevered through the pain of the fall, and captured that glorious sunrise. My chasing light paid off.