Seashell

I made the drive to Sea Side Beach on a bright sunny day expecting to get some good beach and boardwalk shots.  Instead when I arrived the area was overcast, with a thick fog rolling in from the ocean.  Although the scenery was not what I wanted, it did create for some really interesting shots and made it a challenge to work in.  I probably would not have come across this shell on the beach if it was not for those conditions.

What I like about this picture is how it looks like the beach comes to a sudden drop off just a few feet ahead.  The fog prevented anything too far away from showing up in the picture.  I was maybe only 10 feet away from the water, but you could never tell from this shot.

Daily Photo Like

I was convinced that I was not going to post another sunset today because I feel like I have been sharing a lot of those lately, but I was too impressed by this photo.  I love that it has both the setting sun and what looks to be stars in the sky, I just couldn’t resist sharing it.

EDIT: So for some reason when I viewed this picture on a different computer it looked like you could see stars in the sky, but there actually are no stars.  Either way it is still a beautiful HDR image.

Seaoats at Sunrise from Coral Cove Park by Captain Kimo on Flickr.

Surfside Motel - Seaside, New Jersey

I originally took this picture thinking that it would make for a really good black and white.  I was drawn to how the setting sun was hitting the building and the shadows it created.  After working with it as a black and white photo I was not as enthusiastic about it as I initially was, so I thought I would give it a shot as a color and instantly liked it a lot better.

Seaside Boardwalk - New Jersey

I took this photo on Sunday, which was a beautiful day and I thought it would be great to shoot at the beach on such a nice day.  All the way down the parkway the weather was great until I approached the bridge to crossover into Seaside, there was just this incredibly dense fog covering the entire town.  I have never shot in fog before, so it created a very interesting shooting situation.  The lighting and the fog created a lot of very high key images which I haven’t work with before.

Black Sand Beach - Dominica

Here is yet another picture from Dominica, I love this place and am always excited to go back there.  This picture shows off their black sand beaches which comes from the volcanic activity when the island was first forming.  Many islands in the Caribbean actually have black sand, but since many tourists consider it unattractive the island will import white sand to keep them happy.  This is not the case at Dominica, it is one of the least touched and most natural islands in the Caribbean and it is truly a beautiful place, which is why I share so many pictures from there

Blue Bay Restaurant - Dominica

Here is another composite image that I put together and took while in Dominica.  It is called Blue Bay Restaurant in the town of Portsmouth and has the best goat I have ever tasted.  I just love how vivid all the colors are in the image and how it really brings me back to the island and puts me back into the moment when I was taking the image.

Dock Sunset - Dominica

I previously posted this picture as a black and white image a while ago because I could not get the color right.  I finally gave it another shot and think I got it right this time.  This was a long exposure done in Dominica at the Portsmouth Beach Hotel.

Sunset Bay at Night - Dominica

This is one of my favorite places in Dominica, it is the beach right behind a restaurant called Sunset Bay where I always try to go to when in Dominica because I love getting lobster from there.  

I love the light trails of the cars in the distance and the reflection of the lights in the water across the way.  The image is a little grainy, which I am not happy with, but it was still getting used to night photography at this point.  As usual with me, this is a long exposure to get the smooth water effect.

Dominica Beach Stones

This was an interesting picture to try and capture, it may not seem like much, but a lot went into getting it right.  While on my last trip to Dominica in January, I was focusing on taking long exposures which was something new to me.  As you can see this was a bright day on a well lit beach right around noon when the light was at its harshest, which is horrible for long exposures.  I shot this at ISO 100, f/22 for 3.0 seconds.  On top of that I used an ND6 filter and a polarizing filter to bring it down a few more stops so I could get the longer exposure that I wanted.

Timing was everything on this shot too since I wanted to get the water coming up the rocks to give it that smooth look while also waiting for the wind to stop so the leaves were not moving.  Overall I like the shot and the contrast between the dull colors of the sand water and stones and the more vivid colors of the leaves.

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Beach Sunset - Dominca

I love the sunsets in Dominica, I do not think there is a night where they have a boring sunset.  I especially like this one because it was yachting season and the ocean was filled with boats from all over the world.  I wish I had a better zoom lens to capture some of the yachts, a few of them were really impressive looking.  Hopefully the next time I go down during yachting season I will have a better lens.

This image is another extended exposure, which was something I was experimenting with a lot while I was down there.  Doing the long exposure led to the smooth looking water, which I love the effect, but it also created some motion blur on the boats which does not always look right, but I like it in this picture.  I do not think it is as strong as some of the other long exposure images I have taken, but I am happy with the colors and the composition.