Waves washed in on this remote stretch of beach. Then egressed, and wash back out into the oncoming storm. My idea was to use a wide-angle and capture the motion. To do that I used a small aperture to get a long exposure; about one-quarter of a second to get this effect. One little tip about shooting waves at the shore is tripod legs sink when the water washes over. So, if the exposure is too long, objects get blurred. Another tip is to wash off the tripod legs in freshwater as soon as possible. A couple of helpful pointers for you photo bugs.
I almost didn't go down to Venice Beach because I knew if I did, I'd end up retaking pictures of the pier. But I went anyway, and I did it anyway. I have this internal dialog in my brain. One side plans, decides, and weighs; the other does the opposite. In the end, all the noise is just that, noise. So this is the pier in Venice, it's a shot I've done before, but each time is a little different. This time I included only the sun's edge, so its presence is felt without becoming the scene's focus. At least that's how my left brain explains what the right brain did without asking permission.
This spot is from a massive lava flow, surrounded by volcanoes on all sides. I wouldn't want to be here when the next one blows. Living in Florida, it's easy to forget there is a healthy amount of volcanic activity in the pacific northwest. It wasn't my plan to visit volcanoes, but little did I realize, most of the mountains in Oregon are. If I recall, Oregon and Hawaii are in the "ring of fire," and we all know Hawaii is quite active. When I first arrived at this spot, I was struck by how fresh the flows looked; I thought maybe they were ten years old. It was more like fifteen-hundred years, which, as we all know, is just a blink of an eye in geological terms. As amazing as it was, I was still glad to leave before mother nature decided to blink again.
