wooleyrocks
Apr, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This shot was taken perched on the rocks, at Woolacombe Beach looking towards Morte Point, in North Devon, on a cold and blustery Winters evening.Time
Having previously worked as a lifeguard at Woolacombe for a decade, i have often sat perched in this spot looking out and marvelling at the rugged beauty of the coastline and the churning water relentlessly pummelling the rocks. You can’t really tell in the shot but i was balanced quite high up and was using a new tripod i had purchased, so was really trying to put it to the test with some quite uneven ground. The shot was taken just at sunset.Lighting
I had been firing off a few shots of the sets of waves coming in and was to be fair rather disappointed with the results as the lighting was rather gloomy due to the heavy overcast skies. I couldn’t really get enough detail in the the movement of the water without dialing up the ISO too much and creating unwanted noise. I could of opened up the aperture a bit but again at a loss of front to back sharpness which i desperately wanted to keep. So as i didn’t at the time have any ND filters i decided it was going to have to be a two shot composition, and set about taking a nice long exposure of the fast moving clouds whilst in timer priority. Just as the shutter clicked shut from the first shot the sun dropped from under the clouds to the far left of me and completely bathed the entire scene in a golden glow, really brightening the area, highlighting all the rocks and giving the water a golden hue. I quickly changed to aperture priority keeping it at f11 fired off a couple of shots. Even at first look the images looked great, with enough lighting and sharpness, and just the right amount of movement in the water.Equipment
This shot was taken with a canon 450d, canon ef-s 18-55mm f/3.5 standard kit lens @18mm and f/11. And tripod. No additional kit or lighting was used.Inspiration
I had wanted to get a good seacape under my belt and have always wanted to go back to woolacombe to get a few shots. A Sort of going back to my roots kinda thing.Editing
The final shot is a standard split raw conversion of the two shots i took, sky and sea/rocks. Opening the sea/rocks shot in ps raw and boosting the clarity slightly gave the rocks a bit of punch and the sea a whole lot more depth. Raised the exposure ½ a stop and boosted the saturation ever so slightly to emphasise the sun hitting the sea and hit open. Next opening the sky shot in raw i really had to do very little, except boost the clarity a little to again add a bit of drama to the scene. Opening that also in photoshop i copied and pasted the sky layer onto the rocks layer then added a mask to that whilst pressing alt, now it was just a case of painting the rocks back in on the mask. A good tip is to reduce the opacity on the mask to 50% whilst your doing this so you can see exactly what you want to brush in, then whack it back up to 100% when your done. I must also admit to a very little bit of dodging and burning on the rocks and sea to again add some depth and punch. Flatten image, save.In my camera bag
I am currently shooting with a canon 5d mk1, canon 450d, 10-22mm wide angle, the 50mm plastic fantastic, and the standard 18-55mm kit lens. A couple of speedlites and remote firers. Two stands for them to go on and a softbox if needed. And a very sturdy camera stand made by a company i cant pronounce or remember but it really is the best stand i have ever used.Feedback
I suppose the lesson i learnt with this shot is after knowing where and what you want to shoot and how to go about it, you can in the end almost stare defeat in the face due to elements and conditions beyond your control. A very gloomy day, and bad lighting almost thwarted this one but i was quite prepared to stay there perched on those rocks until it was dark!! Luckily i didn’t have to and was rewarded with a flash of sun from under the clouds just before it set for the day.
