I gotta say Steve, that I love your image as presented! Even when I first saw this before the comments I wanted to say how different this is from any other ocean/wave/sunset image I’ve seen. Perhaps one of the most creative. Ocean sunsets are a dime a dozen, right? like shots of the Milky Way, sun-stars, etc. etc. Sunsets are beautiful, often spectacular and there is much that can be captured at the ocean shore that is often very beautiful too.
Can’t really explain it, but the action of the foreground little waves of foam have created something I can’t say I’ve seen before and that gives this image a huge leg up, if I can use the term. Those rolled little waves of foam - kinda remind me of those floating tubes that they use to contain oil spills? (sorry, the name escapes me) but the shutter speed has really allowed those little waves to take on something again, quite unique that I can’t say I’ve seen before.
I’m gonna take it a step further. Did you read the recent article posted here on NPN, “Peripheral Landscape” by Murray Livingston? I haven’t finished reading, but in his closing comments he writes:
I read that and immediately thought of your image AND that out of focus foreground wave. Now it makes sense to me as to why this is so unique. That little wave up front is just a connection to what is outside the frame - the periphery.
I dunno. Maybe I’m reaching… but I just find this very, very cool and unique.
Lon
ps. IMHO, the cropped image works beautifully. At the same time though, it returns the image to a much more ordinary seascape.