Sunday, August 3, 2008

Ghost Beach

I'm finally getting around to processing a load of photos I made earlier this year. These images are from the beach at High Island, Texas. They were taken about an hour after sunset the day after a full moon.




click for larger image


camera/lens: Canon 5D, 17-40mm f/4L
settings: 25mm, f/8, 102 sec., ISO 200


Archetype The photo above shows a specific archetype. I won't tell you what it is, so leave a comment and tell me what you see, please! I showed this to my wife, and she didn't get it. She did, however, see a different archetype, and that was quite interesting because it was something I didn't see. That's why I really like showing my photos to others and hearing their views :-)




click for larger image


camera/lens: Canon 5D, 70-200mm f/4L
settings: 154mm, f/8, 15 sec., ISO 400


I love night shooting. There's something magical and other-worldly about long exposures in the dark. The camera's sensor will keep collecting light and capture details not seen with the naked eye. The resulting photo contains things not seen au naturel.


Of course the negative aspect is that because our human eyes can't see as the camera does, we can't fully appreciate the fine details that show up in the resulting photos as we shoot them. Night shooting often involves a lot of guesswork, trial-and-error, and a lot of time.


Oh, one piece of advice about long exposures taken on a sandy beach: your tripod legs will sink into the wet sand! I took several other exposures (most of them very long, e.g. 3 to 20 min.) very close to the water line and also just into the surf. The photos were a little too blurred to be of any good.

5 comments:

  1. Don't be shy, I know I have people reading this blog :-) What archetype do you see in the first photo? What goes along with the beach, the ocean, etc.?

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  2. Well, I saw the wooden boards as an ocean wave.

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  3. I didn't know what an archetype was so I had to go look up the definition but that confused me more. Based on Tanya - I think it looks like a fish skeleton (using the reflection in the water as half of the fish).

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  4. Yes! We have a winner :-)

    Thanks, Tracey. That's what I saw too - a fish shape. And more specifically, a fish skeleton (or perhaps a beached whale).

    An archetype in a photo is basically a shape or form that represents a symbol (usually something that's well known, like a star, or circle, etc.). In this case, it's a fish shape (think of the classic Christian symbol, i.e. the simple outline of a fish).

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