I took these pictures last week while my wife and I were in Orange County taking my oldest son to college (Go Chapman Panthers!). Some of the pictures were taken south of LA in the Crystal Cove / Laguna Beach area, and some were taken north of LA between Malibu and Santa Barbara. The rocks-and-surf compositions lend themselves to different styles of images – use a very fast shutter-speed to freeze the crashing waves, or slow the shutter-speed down to smear the surf and create the illusion of movement. I have a Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo filter that allows me to slow the shutter down to a crawl, but, unfortunately, I did not have it with me on this trip. I will not make that mistake next time around. Regardless of the exposure, I put the camera in Continuous mode so that it will take pictures in rapid-fire sequence for as long as depress the shutter release button.
This first set of three photographs demonstrates the different styles of images you can take. All three pics are of the same rock outcropping on the coastline somewhere between Ventura and Malibu (I wish like hell I could remember the specific location). The first image was taken with a shutter speed of 1/200, which has the effect of freezing the spray as the waves slam into the rocks. The second and third pics were taken with a shutter-speed of 1/30, which blurs the incoming waves and salt spray. In the second picture, the waves are exploding around and completely enveloping the rocks. The tension in the third pic is more implied, the waves appear as though they are just beginning to spring from among the gaps in the rocks. All three pics were taken hand-held with the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6.
This next picture was also taken somewhere between Ventura and Malibu. It was late afternoon, and the shafts of warm light striking the surf and rocks made for a nice pic. The shutter-speed was a relatively slow 0.4 seconds, which once again blurred the surf. At the time I took this picture, there was a news crew and a crowd of people on the beach behind me because the police were tracking a group of illegal aliens who had landed a boat on the beach and fled into the hills. I was more interested in the surf. This picture was taken with the 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 mounted on my Gitzo tripod.
The next picture was taken somewhere in the vicinity of Laguna Beach. The shutter-speed was set to 1/160 seconds, which slowed the action. At first glance when I downloaded these photos to my computer, I was about to trash this image, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked the way the wave in the center of the frame looks like its about to uncoil and punch the rock right in the face. Hmmm, maybe I’m getting a little carried away.
This final surf-and-rock image was also taken in the vicinity of Laguna Beach. Back to a slow shutter-speed: 1/10 second. You can see the way the slow shutter-speed causes the individual droplets of spray to streak across the frame. Some people don’t like this effect, but I do. Like any technique, it can be overdone, but in moderation it provides a different way for seeing the same landscape in a different way.
Finally, here are a couple of other pictures I took while hanging around the beach. The kite surfers are everywhere in Southern California, but I had two things working against me trying to get some good pics. First, I needed more reach, the ol’ 70-300mm just wasn’t long enough. Second, the surf appeared to be relatively tame everywhere we went, and so good action shots were hard to come by. I’m going to try again in the fall or winter, maybe the waves are bigger then. That’s the great thing about having a kid in school out there, gives me an excuse to visit.
[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://johnmurrill.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/About-me-pic.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]John Murrill, the super cool dude who is responsible for this web-site, has four children. Four! What was he thinking? Wait, don’t answer that. You can see more of his pictures here, and his pictures of the Santa Monica Pier ferris wheel here.[/author_info] [/author]