An adrift half-shell on the wave-streaked sand rippling with ribbons of light under a tempestuous sky …

My first post for 2012: this image was shot a few hours ago. I still have some more photos to post from my last Canadian Rockies trip, but since we’ve been getting dramatic sunset skies, I went back to my local beach with my camera. Will resume posting when I find free time.

Happy New Year!

]]> http://www.photofool.com/2012/01/03/adrift-on-ribbons-of-light/feed/ 63 http://www.photofool.com/2008/03/13/seashells-ii/ http://www.photofool.com/2008/03/13/seashells-ii/#comments Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:58:09 +0000 photofool http://www.photofool.com/2008/03/13/seashells-ii/

Shot just moment before Seashells. Made it a little darker. Like this shot a little better because of the cloud reflections.

Last beach shot for a while. Heading to Utah and Arizona to shoot some landscapes. Back in a week or so …

Shot a couple days ago. Decided to keep the foreground darker with a 2 stops GND filter instead of 3. Also under exposed the image slightly – in a mood for darker photos lately. Experimented with lab colors and curve adjustment on “lightness” channel.

This image was taken about 10 minutes before the previous shot. Here, the edge of the dark cloud began to catch on fire. Eventually, brilliant reds filled the sky and the sand. I love it when sun light can break through a dark and stormy sky.

One of the features of the Canon EOS 5D  that I appreciate is spot metering. Without it, it would have been harder for me to keep my highlights under controlled. 95% of the time, my camera is on M mode with spot metering and ISO 50. A Canon tech support actually recommended that I use ISO 100 on my 5D, but I like ISO 50. Sure, the camera takes a little more extra time to process ISO 50 images, but I prefer the slight saturation boost from ISO 50.

This one was a bit of a challenge to shoot. I was having a massive migraine all day long, so naturally, I just took off for the beach to get some fresh air. When I saw the horizon, I just knew that I’d get a red sky to shoot. I spent the next hour combing the beach, collecting seashells to setup my shots. I know that I can time the incoming surf with a slow enough exposure time to form a giant half-shell shape, and I’ve been wanting to place a real seashell against this surf pattern. All I needed was a spectacular sky to give the shot a visual punch.

Ansel Adams coined the term “previsualization”, and this is what I’ve been practicing: visualizing my shot before it happens. I setup the shells and started to take test shots, waiting for the light to turn. The sea kept on taking the shells back each time the surfs came in and rushed back out. By the time the sky started to turn red, I had lost all of my seashells. Didn’t want to place yet another rock in the frame, I frantically searched the beach for another shell. I found one near by. It wasn’t as bright as I hoped for, but I couldn’t afford to loose the light. I lost my last shell when the last light faded.