I shot this at Harris Beach State Park in southern OR almost two years ago around new year’s day. I was wading in the ebb-and-flow well inside the surf line, staying watchful for any unexpectedly large high incoming surges. I liked how the water flowed out around this rock on the left side of the imate. I wedged my tripod legs well into the sand, and tried a few test exposures, setline on 2 seconds as giving some good “flow” in the foreground water. I used a polarizer to deepen the darkness of the water around the bits of foam that were moving through. But with a 16mm focal length, this of course would create a weird sky effect, so I took one shot focused at infinity with the polarization dialed out, at .6 seconds, stopped down almost one stop. This gave me more crisp water in the distance, somewhat sharper clouds, and no weird gradient in the blue of the sky. Then I shifted to the 2 second exposure and took a shot while the water (and the mass of surface foam spots) was rushing out. I practiced this shift a few times, as my tripod would move a bit with each ebb of the water around me. I would take the first shot (for the sky/distance) after a surged had come in, and the water around me had become slack. Then I’d take the long exposure, for the foreground foam blur. After a few rounds of this, I got one with an especially nice mix of foam placements and water flow. I blended the exposures in PS with hand-masking that included some painting of mask through a luminosity selection.
I’m open to any feedback, but do have a question. Do you like the composition, or do you feel that the water flow takes you up and out of the photo given that it kind of leads you “through the goalposts” of the photo?
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
Excellent landscape with very pleasing color and leading lines of from the soft water. I like the glow from the Sunset on the rocks in the upper left corner. If I were going to try anything I might try to eliminate some of the blue color cast on the water streaks and lighten them up more towards the white end of the spectrum.
Jim, this works very well as presented. I like the curve and sweep of the lines in the water. You’re composite efforts have worked out well. I’ve done your unpolarized/polarized combo before, but it’s been a number of years and it was for the opposite reason. (I wanted the polarized look of trees against sky, but wanted the strong reflections in the water.) I agree with David that backing off a bit on the blue in the water is worth looking into. The reflected glow in the smoothed water looks great.
I like this very much and appreciate the time you took to describe how you did it. The curved lines make it appealing, as do the rocks on both sides, and then the lovely color in the background is a wonderful finish. The comp is great IMO.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ve tried an updated edit, in which I’ve witened/brightened the lines of moving foam, per comments above. I think I’ll iterate some more, adding back a little of the blue hue to the foreground foam lines, as I’m not sure this is quite at the ideal balance there. But I’m definitely liking the brightening in this.
Jim: Just another marvelous shot from Harris Beach and more confirmation I need to get there on our next Oregon trip. I like your original and the fine tuning and really appreciate your rendition of your technique. Congrats on a very well deserved EP. >=))>
If you’re camping, Harris Beach SP is also a nice staging point for getting up along the Samuel Boardman Scenic Corridor, which seems ripe with potential (though I have yet to come home with “keepers” after two trips there). FWIW I got both of these shots (this one and the B&W image that you also liked) at relatively low tides. I don’t recall the tide height, but the gist is that the tide was low enough that there was a broad expanse of pretty flat sand across which the ebb and flow was rushing well inside the surf line. For my eye, I was finding the most interesting potential at HBSP during this tide.
