Another image from our trip to Cape Henlopen SP. We wound up spending most of our time at Herring Point, but I think the next time I go I will see what I can find in some of the areas away from the beach. There are also a couple of WW 2 concrete watch towers along the beach that I think would make for an interesting photo at sunrise. The light really didn’t make much of an appearance due to a lot of clouds, but it did produce some lovely blue tones which contrasted rather nicely with the whites of the waves.
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Is this a composite? (focus stacks or exposure blends are not considered composites)
Nikon D800, Nikonb 17-35 @ 28mm, f 14 @ 0.6 sec, ISO 100, cable release & tripod
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Hi Ed
I’m enjoying your seascapes. I like this half-second effect on the water. It freezes the wave in a nice silky way, and smooths out the water in the sand.
Ed I think that the Cyan cast ha created two personal colors in the sea and in the sky. I like how the splashing waves have softened the sand. A personal photo that I love.
I really love the soft colors and the waves and sand look like a painting. For some reason I feel like the sky doesn’t belong, like it looks like it should be in a different image. But overall it’s a very beautiful image!
Great shot, Ed. I love the cooler tones and the SS is just right to capture the perfect amount of wave action. I also like how you didn’t put the horizon in the middle of the image. Just the right amount of sky. We weren’t blessed with any great light but I think we got all we could out of the conditions we got.
I enjoy viewing and trying to make seascape images, Ed, and I like this. ( Loved your earlier post, “As Good as it Got”)
The large amount of spreading wave whites and details catch one’s attention immediately (and make me want to view it) . Shutter speed is nice, I like to try different slow speeds and compare details and edges and leading lines.
Here are some of my thoughts…the largeness of the foreground surf, to my eye, makes the comp somewhat unbalanced, the earthy mid-tones of sand along the right side are very photogenic and work so well with the surf, but there is not enough of it for me. The combination of these two elements say what a beautiful pristine beach! Alas, the foreground wave has rolled over it. If the leading edge of the surf had already spent itself in that beautiful sand, then from this point of view you would have two triangles: one of sand and one of ocean balancing each other. Regarding the sky…there is just enough of it. I do like the low heaviness and it works with and has given the ocean its nice slate color. You could work the highlights a bit to try and complement more of the surf tones. Just my thoughts and as i said, I do like the image.
For relatively gloomy weather, you bagged yourself an excellent image Ed. As others have noted ,the colors here are great, the sky, the dark water and the sand. And I like the look of the waves, they turned out to be very pleasing looking.
I think @Stephen_Stanton makes a good point about wanting to see more of the earthy tones of the sand. I think the sand is a great color, and more of it would be better. Just to test that suggestion out, in PS I did a rework where I added 5% canvas on the right, and did a Content Aware Fill. After doing this, I like having more of the sand color, but I also think it is good to leave some space to the right of the wave in the LRC, leaving some extra room for the wave “to move into”. I’ll be curious to see what you think Ed.
@Vanessa_Hill: It certainly was a different looking sky. That was what originally attracted my attention.
@Stephen_Stanton: I hear you on the ratio of surf to sand. At the time I was just trying to time the wave action and did not pay a lot of attention to the sand Upon viewing the images on the monitor is when I noticed how much I liked the sand. Here is different image that has more sand, but I do not like the wave action as much.
@Ed_McGuirk: Thanks so much for taking the time to do a rework. I like what you have done so much I think I will try adding a bit more canvas to it and take it a little farther. The weather was pretty gloomy as you mentioned, but there was no way I was going to pass up those clouds and those blue tones in the sky.
The content aware fill did an amazingly good job. My guess is that you can extend the canvas even further and still get something that looks natural. And with these strong horizontal lines, a more panoramic aspect ratio works well too.
