Continuing with the newly resurrected long exposure theme, here are the stairs leading down from the sea wall I showed in yesterday's post. Prior to taking that photo of the overlook, I played with long exposures and the waves that slammed against the sea wall. By extending this exposure time to 20 seconds, I was able to turn the crashing waves into a mist and make it appear that the stairs were descending to clouds or some other-worldly substance below.
The first weekend in September brought great big waves at high tide and I decided to explore the ocean from the vantage point at Surf Street. I ended up exploring the entire length of the sea wall until I reached the end and this small overlook. The light hit at just the right moment and I caught some nice churning waves as they lapped against the rock mass below.
Last week, I posted an image taken of a wave coming to shore at sunset that I shot with a lens at wide aperture. The effect was to alter the sense of scale of the wave and the image was very well received. I thought I would follow that up with this image taken a few minutes later and with the same lens. This time I closed down the aperture to increase the shutter speed and panned across the ocean. The effect was to turn the waves into streaks and use the golden light to paint them. I'll ask the [...]
The rule of thumb is that you should put away the camera when the sun is high overhead. The light tends to be fairly flat and very bright making it difficult to get a solid landscape or any other shot. As it happened, I was out with the kids at Preston Beach on this late August day and had my camera and a long lens with me. I managed a few decent shots of the kids but, as we walked back from the tide pools, I saw this great scene. A boat tied up off the shore, people in and [...]
As I mentioned in last Wednesday's post [LINK] I went out on August 21st under lackluster appearing conditions hoping against hope for a decent sunset. I setup at the pier where the Pleon Yacht club resides and looked on as the clouds began to take shape and break into wisps from the gray mass they had formed earlier that evening. I began by shooting toward the lighthouse. After getting the shot I posted last week full of pinks, I turned and saw this... The streaks in the sky were incredible and seemed to be emanating from this house on the [...]
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had set out on Saturday hoping to use the fast moving clouds for a long exposure image. It has been a while since I had pulled out the 10-stop filter and played with exposures measured in minutes. As the light faded, I found myself near the edge of the lot and trying to capture the lighthouse with clouds behind and the crashing waves transformed to mist below. In this two minute exposure, you can make out the streaks of clouds in the sky. Even more amazing is the swirls of white in the [...]
On Saturday, a series of storms barreled through New England. As they passed, I noticed that the clouds overhead seemed to fly by and I decided to head out for some long exposure shots. I drove across the causeway and then stopped at Castle Rock to watch the crashing waves for a while. I then headed to Chandler Hovey park in hopes of getting the clouds drifting over the lighthouse. Before I could shoot a long exposure however, I noticed this scene before me and couldn't pass up the opportunity. Every few minutes, a break in the clouds would lead [...]
After shooting my kids at this beach and while waiting for the blue moon to rise, I found myself with just enough time to explore my surroundings. I was on the Goldthwait end of the beach and had two lenses with me. I decided to see if my 100mm lens might make for some interesting seascapes when 'opened up' to its maximum aperture of f/2. This allows the most amount of light in but also leads to a very shallow depth of field. I bent down as low as I dared and shot wave after wave as they come to [...]
I was sitting at the computer last night having just finished reading Percy Jackson to my son and was getting ready to catch up on a backlog of photos. As I caught up on Facebook posts, I saw one from All Marblehead giving photographers a heads up that a nice sunset was brewing. I looked at my camera bag, back at the screen of photos and decided to head out... As soon as I got in the car, I realized I made the right choice - nice pink clouds in the sky. Only problem was that it seemed like colors [...]
I've been fortunate to witness and capture some truly astonishing sunsets this Summer. That being said, the epic sunset I witnessed on August 21st, might trump them all. I had witnessed some incredible light shows for several nights leading up to this one but work and kids kept me from running out each night with the camera and tripod. On this night, I had decided to go out no matter the conditions...and then almost changed my mind when the wispy clouds that had covered the harbor left and were replaced by a heavy grey one. I decided that I would at least [...]