• I love this part - *Martu*
  • Perfect - Andrew Moore Photography
  • Grandmother rock continued to preside over what is probably just another routine sunset for her!
  • The light reflected off the lower cloud layer to the underside of the higher layer. I've rarely seen this.
  • Usually the wave would strike while the previous one was still on the beach, but finally one struck while the sand was briefly reflective at high tide.
  • A bit of light coming through the wave.
  • A stream, which helped out on the long exposure that I did after this.
  • I kept a bit of the hillside in for perspective. But I wanted everything pointed towards the open sea.
  • I made sure not to cut off the right edge of this rock.
  • Only at high tide do the waves strike this rock, but high tide makes it harder to capture the reflections.
  • I made sure to include a bit of light on the endless open ocean.
  • The last bits of moving foam from the previous wave. If I had waited for this part to become reflective, I would have missed the wave. And it adds texture anyway.
  • The reds were subtle, but this sunset was not about overpowering red, but about the upheaval going on in the sky!
  • In a way, the lower cloud layer blocked the sun rather nicely so that there would be more detail on the land below.
  • I love the color right here! - thinson07
  • Superb!!! - DavidFrutos
  • Is like a woman! - Antakistas
  • Buddha - sgbaughn

Trinidad Surf - Humboldt County, California

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About 10 minutes after my last upload, I saw this at Trinidad Beach, just north of Eureka, California! High tide. Still raining. No HDR.

Free wallpaper for over 100 of my images in 6 different screen sizes is now available!

See the 1200 pixel version!
www.flickr.com/photos/patrick-smith-photography/351518133...

---------------------------------------------------------
Settings etc.:
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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 17-40L @ 29
1/4-second exposure @F11
LEE soft ND grad (100x150mm) 0.9 + 0.6
Lee foundation kit filter holder with Lee 77mm adapter ring
ISO 100
RAW file processed with Capture One by Phase One
TIFF file processed with Photoshop
Keen water shoes

See my last upload for the trials and tribulations of getting to this spot at this time.
www.flickr.com/photos/patrick-smith-photography/3497030979

So, as the sunset continued, the colors continued to look totally unreal to my eye. I can't say I've really seen the sky like this. Usually when I get home and process the images, I can remember what it looked like and make sure the picture looks that way, but here I knew that I would not remember. So after each shot, I'd look at the viewfinder and then at the sky, to compare the two. The viewfinder looked very similar to the scene before me. Often, it looks much more flat and color-less. So when I got home, I had to look at the viewfinder in order to process this series. I really had no reference to go by!

It was getting a bit darker, so I bumped the ISO up to 100 to keep the 1/4-second exposure time that I like when I want to shoot a breaking wave moving at this speed. I've found that anywhere from 1/8-3/8-second exposures show waves at their best. Not always though. Slow moving water can look good at 1/2-second or longer if it is all moving in the same direction.

So, I noticed how much I liked the occasional wave strike on the rock, so I moved over to have the rock be right in front of the background island for extra contrast. Then I took several shots as the waves would strike until finally I got one with the sand in a good reflective state.

After this, I put on my very dark 10-stop Hoya ndx-400 circular filter for some long-exposure action while the sky was still full of color. No more waiting for things to get dark before going for a long-exposure now!

The map shows exactly where this is.

See my profile for a link to my website where I have limited edition prints and less expensive open edition prints.
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Abhinav Singhai, hangfour, larsvandegoor.com, A Sutanto, and 798 other people added this photo to their favorites.

View 20 more comments

  1. Emotioned.com 27 months ago | reply

    We are working on a monthly travel and adventure sport competition, all winning entries will be published in an online magazine. Judge panel will selected from Flickr.

    There are 3 parts of the competition, 2 parts are currently under development:

    A Flick group called : www.flickr.com/groups/emotioned/

  2. Photo--Graphy [deleted] 23 months ago | reply

    Creative and original.


  3. Luca131313 22 months ago | reply

    How nice this shot, well done indeed!

  4. ☼Sol.Digital☼ [deleted] 9 months ago | reply

    Wonderful work!

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    Thank for the sharing
    Thanks for accept the invite!
    It is a pleasure to have you in our group.

    ♥___CONGRATULATION___♥

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    ♥___Thanks for sharing___♥

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