Waves in the Trees

Eucalyptus Grove Abstract

Another abstract image from a few nights ago at Lake Miramar. The goal of the night was to come away with an image that could be used in the Stripes photo challenge I mentioned in my last post, but the very nature of this type of shooting is unpredictable.

I shot a few hundred frames that evening, doing my absolute best to only move the camera straight up and down while the shutter was open. However, as evidenced by this image, I wasn't always successful staying in a straight line. Many of those images were deleted right away when I saw them on my computer screen, but the gentle side-to-side motion in this one created a nice rhythmic feeling for me, almost like there were waves in the trees.

Natural Stripes

Natural Stripes

When I've got the time (or a unique idea) I try to participate in DGrin.com's photography challenges and when the newest one, "Stripes," was announced I saw it as a perfect opportunity to expand on my Of an Abstract Nature gallery.

Once the idea struck me to create this type of abstract image, the challenge was to find a dense enough grove of trees to make it happen. That might not be a big challenge for many parts of the country, but here in San Diego, there just aren't a whole lot of groves of trees to choose from. Earlier in the week, I just happened to spot a number of eucalyptus trees along the side of the road on my way to the bank and knew they were the perfect subject for this shot. Their tall, slender trucks are generally uninterrupted by branches, allowing for better streaking, or in this case, more distinct stripes.

I returned a couple nights ago after work but just couldn't get the lighting or composition I wanted with the trees I had originally planned on. Luckily, Miramar Lake was less than a minute away. This reservoir had been on my "to visit" list for a while so even if the light wasn't great, I stopped by, planning to scout out the location for future shoots.

Just a couple hundred feet from the parking lot (good short distance because I'm out of shape and it was the hottest day of the year so far!) I found a tightly packed grove of eucalyptus trees squeezed in between the path and the edge of the lake. From the angle I was at, the late afternoon sun lit up only the left side of the trucks leaving the right side in shadow and further emphasizing the stripes created by the slow shutter speed and moving the camera vertically throughout the exposure.

La Jolla Cove Twilight Part 2

Twilight at La Jolla Cove

Another image from my night down at La Jolla Cove. This one was taken about 20 minutes after sunset.

I'm nearly running out of things to say about my photographs from this particular night but I think that's a pretty good problem to have, all things considered. If I came back with so many quality images that I can't think of enough to say about them every time I head out, I could safely quit my day job and start living off my photography. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy this little wave of quality images and wait for San Diego's June Gloom to finally clear up so I can get out to some new locations and take some new photos.

If you're a long time follower of my site here, you've seen these rocks before, a while back. You can see these rocks on the right had side, about mid-picture. Back in those days, I wasn't so adventurous with my camera in hand (I was really a good distance from the oncoming wave, just zoomed in a ways). Now, I just throw a plastic bag over the camera and scamper on out there for the shot! If the camera breaks, it's just a sign that it's time to upgrade...

Also available in Black & White, though I may revisit the conversion and make a few tweaks.

Sunset in Black and White

La Jolla Cove Sunset

Here's another photograph from the sunset on June 21st down at La Jolla Cove. I'm really milking this particular sunset for all it was worth. But with good reason.

This particular night was the best sunset I saw during the week and a half I was out trying to fill my memory cards with worthwhile images and when you find the right conditions, you've just got to go for it. Fill those memory cards and really take advantage of the good light when you've got it.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about this image called out to me for a black and white treatment. As I experiment more with the black and white medium, I suspect I'll have a better idea of what would and wouldn't look good in monochrome, but at the moment all I can really admit to is that I tried it, and I liked it!

And for the curious folks out there, I'm sorry I really don't know what the ridge that starts in the lower left corner is. I've inspected it a number of times and always left empty handed (minded?). In person, it appears that someone long ago embedded a metal pipe into the sandstone and left it to corrode in the salt water but I can't find an opening at either end that would indicate it truly is a long forgotten pipe. It's definitely of a different composition than the surrounding rock and has attracted a multitude of mollusks to it but beyond that I just don't know. It's probably for the best that I don't know. The continuing mystery will keep me coming back for more and hopefully that will mean some more evenings like this one!

La Jolla Cove Twilight

La Jolla Cove Twilight

Taken just 10 minutes after yesterday's sunset image, the mood of this photograph is dramatically different even though it's just a couple feet to the right. The light quickly changes around sunset and the sky begins to really glow during the half hour of twilight that begins once the sun is actually below the horizon.

The quickly changing light makes the time around sunset and twilight a very exciting (read that as frantic) time to photograph. As the last of the day's light fades away, the exposure times increase, I rush around trying to capture as many quality images as I can before the light is completely gone and often times my last exposure is several minutes long when the color on the horizon isn't even visible to the naked eye.

The majority of my images from this time of day showcase a number of educated guesses, especially at the coast. It takes time and experimentation to really begin to see just how the waves will look as they become flattened out over the long exposure. Even now I get surprised on occasion at just how awesome (or horrible) the waves in an image look after 10, 20 or 30+ seconds of  leaving the shutter open. Without much light on the foreground, it can be difficult to compose an image and I often have to recompose after seeing the preview on my camera's LCD after the first couple frames of a scene.

I've still got a few more to come from this evening at La Jolla Cove before we're back to where I started.

La Jolla Cove Sunset

Sunset at the Cove

As promised, I'll move on from the erosion themed images and get back to the photographs you all expect to see here on my site. Though it's difficult to photograph along the coast (especially with the soft sandstone coast we have here around San Diego) without seeing the effects of erosion, but like I said... moving on!

I captured this photograph as the sunset on the same evening as my previously posted Last Shot of the Day image, down at La Jolla Cove. It was taken about 40 minutes before the Last Shot, just when the sun was high enough to still create some interesting highlights in the foreground, yet low enough to begin lighting up the edges of the clouds.

In the short time the sun was at this perfect angle, I managed to capture several different compositions of this scene, but what set this one apart from the others are the leading lines. The various elements throughout the scene work to draw you into the sunset. The middle ground rocks point almost directly at the sun. The highlights on the rock contours in the foreground don't point right at it near the bottom of the frame, but if you follow them up, they eventually curve and point back towards the setting sun. Even the clouds in the upper corners keep your eye from drifting too far out of the image and direct you back towards the sun.

A common problem with large scenic photographs (and I'm sure a number of my previous works suffered from it) is that in a complex scene such as this, with so many different elements, it can be difficult to determine the subject of the image. Without a clear cut subject, your eye will "bounce" around looking for the subject and a place to settle for a little while. The leading lines and  elements of this image work to eliminate that problem and highlight the subject I intended.

Layers

Layers

This is probably the last of the erosion inspired images for a little bit. I know, I know, you're all thankful and want to see the sunset images I created while using the Chris Skopec Homemade Custom Camera Water Proof Housing (patent pending) and those are coming, I promise!

Near the bottom of this image, you can see the Swirlstone from the previous post. I was drawn to both the form of the swirl and the surrounding layers. Those above don't show the same twisting deformation and those below show only a slight curve. Also noticeable is the effect of erosion on the texture of the stone. The Swirlstone marks the top of an outcropping of sandstone, if you look closely you should see the edge all the way across the image. Judging by the textures alone, it's a relatively safe assumption that the smooth stone of the outcropping gets some regular attention from the waves while the water rarely reaches the much rougher rock above.

As in the previous image, the late evening, low angle sunlight set this stone a glow and I actually had to desaturate the colors a touch to keep the image realistic looking.

Swirlstone

The Swirlstone variant of Sandstone

As a follow up to last week's Grains of Sand image post, I offer another image showing the finer details brought to light by the forces of erosion. On the surface, this image speaks more of the process of sedimentation and how the sandstone was created and subsequently twisted. However, without the effects of erosion to remove the rock above and around this twisted knot of stone, we would probably never see it.

Here, the sandstone's regular, warm tone has been enhanced by the late evening light as the sun was beginning to set. The light in the late evening "Magic Hour" adds a warm glow and enhances the stone's texture. Scenes like this abound along the California Coastline as the ocean has cut into the bordering rock surface exposing the details of the relatively soft rock. Up until this particular evening, most of my attention while at the coast has been focused out over the ocean waiting for the sun to dip to just the right angle but this image is a healthy reminder that I shouldn't ignore the good light and scenery behind me.

Grains of Sand

Grains of Sand on a sandstone ledge.

Here's something a little different for me, a macro (almost) image. My eye, at the moment, seems trained to see the grand sweeping expanse of the landscape and I often miss these smaller scene that can be found by getting up close to the details. And in fact I really just chanced upon this view down at La Jolla Cove a few nights ago.

The La Jolla area coastline is composed almost entirely of sandstone in various stages of erosion. Steep vertical cliffs drop into the ocean or give way to small, course-grained sand beaches while other areas, as seen in my previously image,  feature an expanse of wave polished rocks extending some distance out into the ocean.

While waiting for sunset, leaning against one of the areas sandstone cliffs with my feet firmly planted in the warm sand, I looked to my right to find these small grains of sand perched on a small ledge and lighting up in the late afternoon sun. The majority of my lenses are better suited for the wide vistas my eye favors, but my 50mm prime lens allows for super close focusing so I was able to get almost right on top of these grains of sand and still have them in sharp focus. Such a close focus creates a razor thin depth of field (the area of the image in focus) allowing the textures of the sandstone to melt away into a pleasing, golden blur.

I've yet to find a better illustration of Elegant Erosion than these grains of sand resting on a ledge they were most probably a part of not too long ago.

Last shot of the Day

Last Light at La Jolla Cove

After nearly 2 months of not taking any new photos because of various other projects, I've been down at the coast three times in the last week. Now that some other projects are done (or at least done for now) I can get back to having some fun.

The first two nights, last Thursday and last Saturday nights, were both something of a bust. I haven't looked through the complete catalog of images from those two nights and may very well find some compelling images, but neither night had a true sunset. On Thursday, the sun dipped behind some low lying clouds our over the ocean just before sunset and on Saturday it never even had a chance with near total cloud cover at the coast from late afternoon on. When photographing the landscape, you're really counting on Mother Nature to do the lighting for you and when she decides to end the show early, there's not much you can do about it except go home and try again another night.

And try again I did! Last night more than made up for the previous two nights. I headed down to La Jolla Cove where a high tide about twenty minutes after sunset meant the full power of the ocean was coming straight at me for much of the night. And though there was a sizable cloud bank out over the ocean, it was still small enough to let the post-sunset glow show through.

High tide here at La Jolla Cove is a dangerous time, both for camera and person. The splash of the waves can wreak havoc with a digital camera if proper precautions aren't taken (I fashioned a "dry suit" for my camera and lens out of a one gallon Ziploc bag. Worked like a charm!) and this rock under foot, even though it's sandstone, has very little texture to it after countless years of abuse by the sea. I opted to go barefoot while out there as my feet offered better traction on the rocks than my sandals.

This particular shot is out of order. It's the last photograph of the night from last night. It's a thirty second exposure taken about twenty minutes after sunset and just a split second before a large wave crashed down on my location almost knocking my tripod over. I saw the wave coming in and had appropriately braced myself for the wave, but going from mostly dry to knee deep in a split second was enough to tell me that it was time to get out of the way before the waves got any more intense. Thus I present to you this last photograph of the night as a Badge of Honor that my camera and I made it out safely!

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.

Coastal Rocks/Wave Explosion Combo |B&W|

The previous 2 images combined.

This image is a combination of the previous two shots. Still no interesting sky, but since the exposures and black & white treatment were identical, it was easy to combine them and use the best of both for one image.

 

According to some folks, this photo is a lie or at least cheating.  I would argue that I didn't create unnatural circumstances in this image and therefore have not cheated and since I'm writing about it, clearly not lying either. Both parts are realistic and this particular image probably occurs naturally. I couldn't capture it in one image when I was there because the waves weren't coming in fast enough. By the time a wave was coming ashore, the previous one had already dried out, leaving no reflections.

 

In the end, whether it's cheating or not, I think the resulting image is greater than the sum of its parts!

Wave Explosion |B&W|

An "exploding" wave.

Last Friday's photo and this photo came just seconds apart at Crystal Cove State Beach/Park. Both were shot about a half hour before and 180 degrees from my Sunset at Mordor Beach image.

These rocks were lit up with a nice warm, golden glow as the sun set behind me, unfortunately the sky was a flat grey due to the cloud cover. Much of our day here at the coast had been overcast with uninteresting skies and despite my previous follies with black & white images (as mentioned in my last post), I planned for these images to be black & white. Or at least solid attempts at it.

Since the sky was so uninteresting in this direction, I slowed down my shutter speed to catch the motion of the waves and create an interesting element in the foreground to draw attention away from the sky. In the previous image, shot as a wave receded, you can make out the reflection of the rocks in the wet foreground sand. In this image, the next incoming wave hit the smaller rocks with a good amount of force. The slower shutter speed caught the full "explosion" of water created by the wave slamming into the rock.

Both images can be found in my Just Black & White gallery.

Coastal Rocks |B&W|

Coastal rocks at Crystal Cove

I don't create a lot of black and white images. There I said it. And if you want proof, take a look at my Just Black & White gallery. (I know, I need to work on the title for that one. It's not very imaginative is it?) There's only 6 images in there. And while there may be a few others floating around my site that need to be included in this gallery, that only works out to 8 or 9 images out of the nearly 500 up for public viewing!

The reason? I'm still trying to figure out how to do it. "But black & white imagery has been around forever! What are you trying to figure out?!" I hear you asking. Well, even though black & white is where photography started, that doesn't mean it's easy and it all boils down to color theory and the contrast between different colors. What shade of gray should this blue be? How about that blue? And this red over here, what should that look like? It's all subjective and entirely up to me to decide when making the conversion.

Photoshop offers a myriad of tools for creating monochrome magic (new gallery title?!) and each allows you to precisely control what shade of gray individual colors should be. And that's part of the problem for me. There are just too many options and I would much rather be out taking photos on a nice day then experimenting in Photoshop.

This image is the result of a fairly quick and easy method I recently invented (and by invented I mean, I thought about trying it only to discover it's been around and on the internet for quite some time now). After checking the various color channels, I found the red channel in the RGB spectrum held the best looking image and deleted the green and blue channels, resulting in a monochrome representation of the information held in the red channel. A contrast adjustment, some sharpening and a little dodging to further improve contrast and the image was done.  For such a simple process, the results are rather nice, if I do say so myself!

Sorry to bore you all with the technical talk, more information about the location will be in my next update.

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...

End of The Day

End of the Day - Sunset at Ocean Beach

I shot this image about a week and a half ago on the first evening my friend Jay was in town. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Southbeach so Jay could try their legendary fish tacos then took the short walk to the beach to shoot the sunset.

The beach part of Ocean Beach isn't much to write home about photographically speaking. It's more or less just a sandy beach. But just a bit south of the pier, the beach quickly turns to pock-marked sandstone. That's good news for a couple photographers looking for interesting foreground subject matter. With the sun low in the sky, the sandstone picks up an amazing golden glow. When the sun is very low (as it is in the image on the right), only the top ridges pick up that glow, creating an interesting contrast between the lit up ridges and the rest of the rock.

This is a single image, no multiple exposures or blending or even Photoshop trickery. What you see here is largely what came out of my camera. I achieved this single exposure by using my graduated neutral density filter along with a graduated blue filter. Placing the darker regions of the filters over the sky allowed me to effectively darken the sky enough to capture the sky and relatively dark foreground all in one exposure. Typically, only the graduated neutral density filter would be used for this purpose, however I've found that no matter how "neutral" the filter is supposed to be, there is still a noticeable color shift when using it. The blue graduated filter doesn't reduce the exposure by much, but it does tend to shift the colors back towards reality.

Reducing the exposure for the sky, meant using a longer shutter speed to get the proper exposure. That's something I see as a happy side effect, especially along the coast. With a quick shutter speed, the water is frozen in place, but the longer exposure allows the water to show its motion. The wispy, flowing water shown is the result of longer exposure and begins to hint at the forces of nature that shape this part of the California coast.

Sunset at Mordor Beach

It's really Crystal Cove State Park

OK, so I didn't really travel to Mordor for this shot. Not only is it a dangerous place, but it's also quite fictional. Once of the first images that really WOW'd me when I first picked up my interest in photography was a beach scene with a large, prominent rock in the foreground, misty waves and fiery sunset sky. Maybe I had just watched Lord of the Rings for the hundredth time on TBS, but the instant I saw it I thought, "That looks like Mordor Beach!" Forget for just a minute that you never actually see a beach in Mordor in any of the movies. Suspend your disbelief!! If there had been a beach in Mordor, it probably would look a lot like that image all day long. When I first saw this capture on the LCD on the back of my camera, I instantly thought, "Mordor Beach! I have found you!" And while I'm not going to discuss whether I like my image better than the one I remember seeing so long ago, if Mordor had a beach, I imagine it would look very much like this!

This image was actually taken at Crystal Cove State Park near Laguna Beach. I had heard and seen good things about the Laguna Beach area, but had never had the chance to visit until last week when my friend Jay was in town to do some photography. We arrived early and did our best to scout out some locations prior to sunset even though there was heavy cloud cover and little chance of seeing a sunset through it all. The beach has a literal treasure trove of photographic opportunities. Everywhere you look, enormous rocks jut upwards from the sand just begging to be included as a dramatic, striking foreground.

This image can be found in my California Coastline gallery.

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.

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.