Surreal_Rocks
Aug, 2011Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo in a place known as Ghallis in Malta, Europe which is where I live. This type of scenery is typical of our mostly rocky coastal shores.Time
The photograph was taken on 05/10/2008 at 17:52:08 (thank God for EXIF data :) )Lighting
I was using on camera flash for fill as it was getting a little dark. It was TTL flash. The natural light was beautiful at that time but rapidly fading hence the longish shutter speed combined with the TTL flash for foreground fill.Equipment
I shot this image with my trusty Canon EOS 5D using the kit lens IE EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM. The settings were as follows; 2.5 sec; f/10; ISO 100 Manual; Spot metering. The camera was mounted on a tripod. I can't remember if I had my shutter trigger back then.Inspiration
The sea which I absolutely love. I wanted a peaceful, minimalistic look but enough to portray the peacefulness I feel whenever I am close to the sea.Editing
This image has very minimal post processing. There is some slight cropping off the top of the image to make it look a little panoramic. The most important processing was cloning away patches of thick black tar from the rocks which to me looked unsightly and tended to draw the eye towards them. Then the usual tweaking in colour and tonality followed by some sharpening.In my camera bag
Good question :) I don't like having to carry too much heavy stuff around. Nowadays I take my camera and a couple of lenses depending on whatever I am going to be shooting. I take spare cards and batteries, some cleaning stuff and spare lens and camera back covers. Sometimes I include my tripod and shutter trigger, again depending on what I am shooting. Occasionally I may use flash and at times I take some filters with me such as neutral density ones or Polaroid filters.Feedback
A tripod is necessary for this type of shot. However steady one's hands may be there will never be the quality from a hand-held shot at high iso that one can obtain simply by suing a tripod and low iso setting. Protect your gear and be careful of high tides. In Malta this is not a problem as we don't have high or low tide. Try to take different exposure settings, angles and crops for different looks. If the light is failing (and even if it is not, it may still produce a more interesting result), use fill in flash which helps to light up the foreground and improve with sharpening. Most of all enjoy it and don't forget any equipment behind which is what happened to me on that day. I left my polaroid filter behind when I took it off the lens.
