Under the Scripps Pier in La Jolla

Under Scripps Pier at night

A recent favorite of mine, this image was taken at La Jolla Shores, under the Scripps Pier and can be found in my ever growing California Coastline gallery. It is actually 3 images stitched together. My current gear doesn't allow me to capture an ultra-wide angle of view, so a relatively small space like under this particular pier is hard to capture in it's entirety with one single shot. (And the gear needed for that runs in the thousands!)

I waited for just the right wave to come in and recede before taking the first shot (bottom of the image). The little bit of water left as the wave receded gave me that nice reflection in the foreground. Once that was in place, I just tilted the camera up a little, took the second image and repeated for the third (top) image. Photoshop did an excellent job of stitching the 3 images together for me, but I had to go in and manually correct some perspective distortion that resulted in the camera being tilted upwards.

High Tide at La Jolla Cove

Waves crashing on the rocky shore at La Jolla Cove

Tides are good for business. That is, if your business is photographing the coast. Particularly good when it's a very low or very high tide at sunset. In between tides and even normal high or low tides are average at best, photographically speaking. Even at sunset, they lack drama or uniqueness because they are so common. But the extremely low and high tides associated with the full moon are another beast all together. During extremely low tides reveal rocks formally hidden beneath the waves and the high tides bring waves that batter the coast with a brutal intensity.

This image, from my California Coastline gallery, was taken during high tide at La Jolla Cove. While these coastal rocks normally do get wet during an average high tide, the extreme high tide brought an energy I had yet to see here. To shoot this image, I chose a slow shutter speed, to allow the crashing waves to blur and show their movement and energy. This technique is not an exact science and I've found the best way to bring home a great image is to choose a composition, then choose the shutter speed that allows for the best movement in the waves and finally to just lock the shutter down for a while. The result is normally quite a few similar photos to sift through, but the payoff of finding that one image with just the right wave splash in it is more than worth it!

Energy Drink

Energy Drink

I try to participate in as many of DGrin's photo challenges as time allows. Not only are the prizes paid up in credits for my SmugMug subscription, but they push me towards new levels of creativity and excellence in my photography. Every quarter, the forum offers a Mega-Challenge with increased prize payout and only open to those who have placed in the top 5 of a challenge during the previous 3 months.

This image, Energy Drink, was shot for one such Mega-Challenge that my Transportation image qualified me for. The theme for the challenge was Energy and as a caffeine junky, the idea of an energy drink was an instant fit.

The set up for this shot was pretty simple, a couple pieces of black poster board for the background, a cold soda from the fridge, camera on a tripod, couple small flashlights and shoot away.

The bottle was lit up from behind with a small Maglite in three separate exposures which were then stacked together in Photoshop. The swirls were made with a tiny Maglite dangling on a string and swished around the bottle. These swirls were shot in three different exposures and again stacked with the bottle in photoshop. The image could have been produced in one single exposure, but the nature of swirling a flashlight around a bottle is unpredictable at best. Trying to light the bottle and create the swirls all in one shot would have led to needless pain and frustration.

After Dark - Sunset Cliffs

Only One Way Out - Stairs up from the coast, well after sunset

Amazing things happen after night fall. This new image is from a set entitled After Dark, that strives to document the look of the world once the sun goes down.

With very low light, an After Dark scene demands a long shutter speed to capture the details. This particular scene, from the foot of the staircase leading to the beach at Sunset Cliffs, required a 7 minute exposure (you read that right SEVEN minutes!) and was taken about 2 hours after sunset.

It was a full moon night, and I believe that added to the surreal pink clouds and purple sky, but a large cliff directly behind the camera blocked any of the moonlight from hitting the rocks or staircase. The light falling on those foreground objects is from a well placed, but far off, street light. So far off in fact that to the naked eye, it doesn't appear to be adding any light to the scene, but after 7 minutes of adding up, it's clear the light is on at least the railings of the staircase.

A few more After Dark images can be seen in this gallery.