Fujifilm X-T4 + XF16mmF/1.4 R WR: 120s+1s, f/11+f/8, ISO200+ISO800

This is a landscape catch-up post to share a few photos from my latest morning adventures. Often the people I photograph with will inspire me to try something new. The morning started at my favorite sunrise spot, but on this morning we ventured beyond where I had previously been. My world map expanded a little and I discovered this cave. It was windy and the ocean was wide awake! The cave protected my filters from the swirling sea spray and when a particularly well-timed large swell came through, the water would crest over the rocks and waterfall down the wall and trickle unthreateningly into the cave. My friend, Quiet Shadows (yep, he does landscapes too), has been using screw-on filters as of late, choosing to composite skies and foregrounds together in post-processing. I’ve never been a great composite editor, so I use specialized graduated neutral density filters to approximate the effect in-camera.

After positioning the camera on the tripod and sliding the filters into place, I waited patiently for the next large set to roll through and give me the waterfall effect. The sky started to light up and the colors were starting to burn in. The clouds were passing over in a way where stretching them with a long exposure looked like an interesting possibility! I switched my filters to prioritize the sky, and in the middle of the change a nice set came through! I missed the waterfall! I spent a few minutes on a few frames to lock the sky exposures in, then changed the filters back to focus on the foreground action. Many minutes passed without the water cresting over the wall. I made a decision that the photo might be better if I put the polarizer filter on so I could cut down on the reflection in the pools of water in front of me and see the rocks beneath them. As I installed the polarizer, another set came through and I missed that one too! I sat, frustrated waiting many more minutes hoping another good set would roll through. This time I was 100% ready! Then the sun broke the horizon causing another filter change! Y’all know what happened. Mother Nature has a frustrating sense of humor sometimes. I was worried my guy, quiet shadows would start packing up once the sun rose prominently in the sky because the warm colors begin to fade and the light becomes hard and unforgiving, and he was not in the protected cave. Then finally a nice set rolled through and I captured a few good frames.

I knew that the composite I had in my head would be a bit tricky as the sky I liked was pre-sunrise and the foreground I liked was post sunrise. I had to match colors, reduce the sun trail over the water, and blend them. I also had to spot-check the cave ceiling of a million little color noise dots… I think it was worth it.

The week before, we had visited this famously cinematic beach. As we walked across the sand looking for compositions to frame, I was instantly drawn to (or more accurately, redrawn to) the flow from this spot (as you can see in the first two slides above, 11/07/2020, 10/20/2019). The previous version has been one of my favorites for some time. I still like it better than the more recent one. The other thing I noticed in comparing the two, is how much less sand the new one had than the old one. Overall, at the various different locations I’ve been to, I’ve noticed that there’s less sand than before. I used to think it was a seasonal change, but now I’m not so sure.

I had also tried to build a long exposure / drag exposure composite, but the clouds didn’t cooperate (as you can see in the latter-two slides above). I opted to keep the two exposures separate as they were both results of trying something different. On my drag exposures, I tend to favor catching the water streaks as the water recedes back to the ocean. On this morning, I wanted to experiment with exposures where the water came at me too. The first thing I discovered was the shutter speeds of incoming flows needed to be quicker than those of the receding flows as the water moves with more intensity coming in. The outgoing examples are 1s, and the incoming one is 1/4s for reference. The incoming flow has a more surreal look to me because the water streaks but the sand is “dry” still. I plan on exploring this look more in the future. In the last frame above, I did the long exposure first for the sky part of a composite, but the clouds became an ugly mess. The foreground, however looked like bad computer graphics (CG) to me which I found visually interesting, so I decided to share this weird frame.

Fujifilm X-T4 + XF35mmF/1.4 R: 1/1000s f/2 ISO160

I don’t often photograph sunsets, but I was on the other side of the camera one afternoon (maybe more on that later), and as I was headed back to the parking lot, the sky was too brilliant not to snap a photo of). I pulled my camera from my camera bag and took a snapshot. I loved that there were people in the frame, it felt like a scene from an anime.

Once a quarter my day job takes me way out into the country side. When I go there I like to take the opportunity to photograph the sunrise. On this visit, I woke up a little later than I had intended. I always miss the parking area in the pre-dawn light, and this visit was no different. By the time I had my tabis on and the tripod on my back, the sun was already eclipsing the horizon. I rushed to a spot but the water was much higher than I anticipated! I couldn’t afford to get too wet before work, so I played it safe. I dipped the tripod in the water, articulated my screen, and stayed as dry as I could. With the sun out, I couldn’t quite reduce enough contrast in-camera, so I settled for the silhouette look. I experimented with the shutter speed and a rare wide aperture for this landscape photo to give it a more “dreamy” look. ⅛s was fast enough to keep enough motion detail while smoothing out the water surface just a bit. This photo definitely leaves more to be desired for the next time.

Fujifilm X-T4 + XF16mmF/1.4 R WR: 200s f/11 ISO160

The only thing I saw here was this giant mirror puddle on the ground. The clouds sped by in militant lines and Quiet Shadows lived up to his name.

Lastly, another rare sunset photo. One of the original dA Crazies photography group members whom I haven’t seen in years asked if I’d join him and a small crew for a sunset / Milky Way galaxy (last chance of the season) shoot. Like I’ve said before, my favorite thing about photography is connecting with people, so of course I went. My intent was more to catch up than to catch a photo. My Milky Way galaxy photos were kind of a mess, but this sunset composite came out alright.

That’s all for now!

11.21.2020