Carmel
Mar, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo on the beach of Carmel, California. My family has lived in California for my whole life, but surprisingly I've never been here. My mom actually found the place online as one of the "must-see" sight-seeing places, so we drove down and took a bunch of pictures!Time
My dad took the family on a day trip; we drove about 2 hours from home to get to this beach, so it was already afternoon when we arrived.Lighting
Despite blue being a cold color, I wanted the picture to be bright and warm to capture how great the weather was and how happy the atmosphere was that day (especially because it was a long weekend too!) The afternoon sun was strong and illuminating, and it almost made the waves look like they were glowing.Equipment
This was shot with a Canon EOS Rebel T5, which is actually my dad's camera. He graciously let me borrow it because my own camera wasn't capturing the waves like I wanted them too. His 75 - 300 mm lens allowed me to capture the detail of the water droplets. I was actually sitting on the sand and using my arm as a tripod so I could be closer to the ground and get the angle that I wanted.Inspiration
I'm a really big fan of anything blue-- particularly waves and anything in the sky. I practically spent the whole afternoon taking pictures of the waves, especially because they were pretty big that day. Each time I take a picture, the waves look different; the way the waves crash and the in-between forms that waves have before rejoining the rest of the ocean always amazed me. Out of all the pictures I took that day, this one was definitely my favorite because I captured the curling of the wave before becoming flat again.Editing
Usually when I do post-processing, I just edit the color a bit in order to accent the beauty and vibrance of the scene. In this particular case, I made the colors a little more saturated and highlighted the green in the waves to make it look more like jade.In my camera bag
Being a student and an amateur photographer, I actually don't have too much fancy equipment in my bag. I usually just carry around Canon EOS Rebel T2i with 18-55 mm lens (which was actually given to me by my dad after he got a new camera). Sometimes, when my camera isn't around I just use my phone (Samsung Galaxy S5) and the quality is surprisingly nice especially for wider shots.Feedback
In my experience, I'd say the waves are larger on a windy day, or before/after a storm. Perhaps it may not be as sunny (as in this photo), but menacing waves are equally as interesting to capture. I think it takes a lot of time to wait for the perfect wave, but changing the shutter speed or taking multiple pictures in a row (and choosing from a bunch) is probably the best way to capture waves.
