Inspirations – Translucent Waves by Sarah Fischler

© Sarah Fischler

Translucent Waves.  Falcon Cove, northern Oregon coast.

Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 mm lens at 17mm
1.3 sec @ f/18  Double-processed RAW file for a darker sky.

Even though this beach doesn’t have any of the dramatic seastacks of other Oregon coast locations, it is quite charming because of the endless cobblestones. It is called Magic Rocks Beach for good reason – the waves rushing over the cobblestones create a mesmerizing sound that coupled with the motion of the waves, makes for a meditative photography experience.  Because the cobblestones are important to the character of this beach, I wanted to capture an image that showed the waves and the rocks interacting in some way.  I especially like this photo because it takes a moment to get a sense of what is actually happening here.

While luck is involved, capturing this translucent look is much harder than it may appear (I know – I have been pursuing an image like this for some time).  The month before this trip, I went on a family vacation and stayed at an unremarkable beach.  Since the waves were the only interesting feature of the area, I got in a week of experimenting with capturing all different kinds of effects based on different kinds of lighting situations and shutter speeds.  I was able to apply all of that practice to finally capture the effect here.

Since posting this image online, I have received a few inquiries as to whether or not this is a Photoshop creation.  It is not – the waves and rocks appear just as they did in the original RAW file.  I did separately process the RAW file for the sky and manually blended it in.  Because the rocks are constantly moving with each wave, properly aligning a graduated filter would have been a challenge, thus necessitating the blend. ~ Sarah Fischler

Advertisement

Inspirations – Polaris by Jacob Lucas

© Jacob Lucas

24mm @ f/8 ISO 800 for 1128.2 seconds (approximately 19 minutes)

Before travelling to Cannon Beach, I’d seen many, many images of Haystack Rock and the coastline and I thought to myself, I want to come up with some different but equally as beautiful as everything I’d seen from the area. I thought, if there were a clear night sky, I may be able to capture the North Star (Polaris) with some star trails above Haystack Rock. I knew I needed to be south of the rock looking North and that if I pulled it off, the movement of the star trails would lead the viewer’s eye from Polaris, down to Haystack Rock and back up again. So, I waited for the cover of darkness on the beach, watched the sun set and visualised my shot. It as a beautifully clear evening with stunning colours in the sky. When the sky was dark enough (at the time I took this image it was nearly pitch black dark with small amounts of light over the horizon from the setting sun) I set up my tripod and composed my shot. After a couple of test exposures to get a feel for the light, I extrapolated out what settings I would need for an exposure of approximately 20 minutes… and this is the result.

I think one of the key points to remember about photographing the stars in the sky is that they are also landscape images, much like their daytime counterparts. They deserve as much thought into composition and subject placement as any other landscape photograph.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Darwin for featuring my image of Cannon Beach on his blog. It’s a true honour to have my work posted alongside the company he keeps here. ~ Jacob Lucas