Kelly Kavanagh
Matt BlazePacific Ocean, From California, 2014.
More pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/14820439752
This was a three second exposure (with about 10 stops of neutral density). The sun was behind the clouds just above the center of the frame; the lens required careful flagging to avoid glare.
The rendering of water, especially in the sea, depends very much on exposure. 30 seconds looks quite different from 3 seconds, which is just as different from 1/30 sec, which is different from 1/1000 sec. About 1/30 sec renders roughly the way our vision does; anything else requires a camera to see.
The composition is an exercise in tone and texture, with four very distinct regions (sky, sea, surf, and beach).
AI6YR Ben@mattblaze My photo... love playing with these exposures. This is Santa Cruz Island (Channel Islands National Park). A photo, btw, that no one can take anytime soon again (they built a new pier through the middle of this scene, to replace one wrecked by a storm off to the left in this photo).
@ai6yr Lovely.
Scot Hacker@mattblaze A pleasure finding your Phase One images on Flickr - followed!
skryking@mattblaze to my untrained eye it looks hazy, was it hazy that day or is that part of the longer exposure? Not implying that it's bad, just curious of what makes it look that way to me.
@skryking Not a hazy day, but you're looking at the surface of the ocean integrated over several seconds, which smoothes out the peaks of the waves.
@mattblaze ok, that makes sense. The motion of the objects between the start and stop of the exposure would make it smoother..thanks for the insight.