Surf Spray
Jan, 2016Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I took this picture in Laguna Beach, California back in 2007 during a family vacation to celebrate my daughter's 16th birthday. There is so much to photograph in Southern California, between Laguna Beach, Santa Monica and Los Angeles. We went to see the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach in August. They create living art by posing live people to recreate the most popular art of all time. It is amazing to see the art come to life!Time
When our family goes on vacation I like to go out early and walk the area to find the sites and then take my family later to share the experiences. This morning I didn't get out too early...probably around 9:00am. I walked the beach from our hotel to downtown Laguna Beach. I found some surfers enjoying the morning waves. This was taken around 10:00am.Lighting
I prefer to work with natural light but will sometimes use fill flash if the sun is behind the subject. In this case I only needed to wait for the sun to rise above the California hills. The angle of the light penetrated the waves and create the perfect scenario. On the west coast morning is great for surfing pictures. Where I live in Florida the afternoon works better and the waves are much smaller.Equipment
This picture was taken when I was just getting back into photography. I had just bought my first DSLR, a Nikon D50 with a Nikkor 70-300 zoom lense. I now have a Nikon D750 full frame that I love. I would like to think I am a much better photographer today but I don't think I could take a better picture than this one.Inspiration
There is no better inspiration than the Pacific coastline and how people interact with the ocean and the beach. I have never surfed but I love to watch people who do it well. Stopping action and capturing a moment in time is one of the things that I love about photography. Things happen so fast but a photograph captures the moment. I took dozens of surfing pictures on this morning and have a few hanging on my wall.Editing
For this picture I did very little post-processing. I shoot raw pictures and then use DXO OpticPro for post-processing. The software automatically corrects for the lense and provides a quick workflow process. I also like the noise reduction so that I don't have to worry so much about high ISO settings for nighttime shots. For this picture I added a little tone mapping to bring out details and then eliminated the saturation for a black and white image.In my camera bag
I have owned a number of Nikon DSLR cameras since the D50...the D90 and D7000. When I read the reviews on the Nikon D750 I decided to go full frame and have never regretted the decision. I use to bring a large number of lenses but now have 3 go to lenses for travel. The Nikkor 24-120 is my favorite all around lens for landscape and architecture. The Nikkor 80-200 brings me closer and the 2.8 aperture means I can still use fast shutter speeds for sporting events. I also bring my Nikkor 400 prime for bird and wildlife pictures.Feedback
To capture sports pictures you need a fast shutter speed and a good zoom lens. With good lighting you can get some some good shots at higher aperture but having a lens with a 2.8 or lower aperture means you can take some great action shots indoors or in poorer light. A little tone mapping adds some details but don't go overboard. I went through the HDR phase but now enjoy more realistic pictures. Also, experiment and see how your picture looks in black and white. While the color version of this picture is good, the contrast between the surfer and the light hitting the water made for a better picture in black and white.
