Erickson Photography's photostream  

A new take on an old favorite of thecoastisclear.

Strobist info: SB-800 handheld bounced off the top of the tent at full power

Testing out a new style.

The geomorphic properties of coastlines with substantial upift, badlands, wave swells, and aeolian forces are spectacular to behold. A multitude of processes can be directly seen: fluvial (rivers and streams), aeolian (wind), hillslope, tectonic, and biological. On the coastline of places with active volcanism (i.e., Hawaii), even igneous processes (magma/lava) can be seen at work. Coastal landscapes such as these exhibit the notion from geomorphology that the land underneath our feet is always changing. Coastal landscapes further imply that a steady state of landscape evolution can never exist in the real world; each process constantly changes, combining to produce visible results.

Global change, fueled by the earth's climate, leaves nothing untouched. At the base of the idea of rapid change is the butterfly effect; through it, small changes in the climate can potentially cause an ecosystem to cross an ecological threshold and experience what is known as regime shift, where whole ecosystems change in type and function, with commensurate species loss. Efforts are underway to support ecosystem resilience through scientifically informed management practices. However, it's plain to the eye that development continues to outpace ecosystem resilience in global political priority. Mostly, we continue the ways of our mercantilist predecessors. But, great changes are afoot. Institutions as old as the U.S. Navy are finding the roots of naval power to increasingly depend on sustainable sources of energy as well as maintaining oceanic biodiversity - even if their intention is to use dolphins to detect mines.

This image started as a pretty simple architectural snapshot that I took while doing photography work at a business event. I decided to have a little fun with the editing process to see how dramatic I could make a properly exposed, but fairly plain, photograph appear. The technique I used was pretty simple and the result, quite dramatic. It is perhaps a little more HDR-esque than I would normally produce, though I did not use HDR.

It is true what many photographers say; the editing process all starts with a properly exposed image. If you're new to photography and want to find out what I mean, here's a link to the book that started my photography education (an education that thankfully has no end in sight):

www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Photographs-Cam...