Soft Light, Soft Water

Long exposure after sunset, looking at the Ocean Beach Pier.

I love long exposures! There's a bit of mystery in long exposures as you can never tell exactly what you're going to end up with. You can guess and try to envision the effects of the increased exposure time, but you'll never know for sure until you see it on you LCD screen after the shutter closes.

Case in point, this photo was a 30 second exposure about 30 minutes after sunset. It was taken the same night as End of the Day and the image for 12 Minutes Makes a World of Difference, back in mid-April. As I set up for the shot, the sky was already a deep dark blue, edging quickly towards black but I knew the long exposure time would allow my camera's sensor to pick up the last remaining bits of color in the sky. What I didn't know was that I would end up with such nice, soft pastel colors in the sky.

I also expected the waves would be smoothed out quite a bit. My hope was that I wouldn't lose all definition in the ocean, but I couldn't have predicted the reflection of the pier's lights on the smoothed out waves. The reflections of the lights wasn't apparent to the naked eye that night, probably because of the motion of the waves, but once the motion was taken out of the equation, those reflections were allowed to shine.

12 Minutes Makes a World of Difference

Just after sunset at Ocean Beach

Taken just 12 short minutes after the image in my last post, End of the Day, this image has a completely different look to it. With the sun now completely below the horizon, what was a 1 second exposure for End of the Day became an 8 second exposure for this image.

The added exposure time allowed the waves to blur even more than the previous image. At this exposure length, the majority of the waves and motion in the water has been smoothed out and is nearly unrecognizable. The effect is somewhere in between the two points where I'd like it to be. In End of the Day, the waves show quite a bit of motion blur but still hold definition. At the other end of the spectrum is Only One Way Out, an older image that shows the effect of a 7 minute (yup, minute!!) exposure. The water is completely smoothed out and lacks any real definition. Those two extremes are where I'd typically like the water to be in all of my images.

However, I don't mind the in between look in this image because this image is more about the different conditions in such a short amount of time after the last one. Notice the sky color, no longer a golden, burning orange. With the sun now well below the horizon the sky has picked up a nice pinkish glow. Also notice the rocks in the foreground. They aren't the exact same rocks, of course, as I moved and found a new composition in those 12 minutes, but look at the difference in the color of the rocks. In the previous image they glow and reflect the sky's golden orange. These rocks, without the direct angular sunlight, look much more menacing and uninviting.

While this image is quite a bit colder and may not be as "pretty" as the previous one, I propose that it is no less interesting. It's amazing how much a scene can change in just 12 minutes...

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.