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.

Stand Behind Line

Stand Behind Line

I'm not sure why Google Maps is choosing to show the location for this image as "Core - Columbia, San Diego, CA," but this image was shot at One American Plaza in downtown San Diego. The plaza houses a fairly busy hub for the MTS Trolleys, San Diego's above-ground subway solution, and was the perfect location to shoot for a recent photography forum contest entitled Transportation.

As soon as the contest was posted, I envisioned an image similar to this one, a red trolley flashing by with that uber-cool ribbed, arching roof showing above and through the flash. Various compositions, angles and shutter speeds were attempted with the sole purpose of capturing just the perfect frame to match the vision I had.

A few hundred frames (mostly because these types of long exposures can be so unpredictable in their results) yielded a nice crop of keepers, but this one here stood above the rest. It was the one frame that matched my vision completely and had the add bonus of titling itself.