¡Viva la México!
If you know my wife, Kari, and I - you know she is the beach girl and I would be content sitting in the woods—exhibit ‘A’ below. You can just tell who is made for what.
(…and sand…been home a couple days and I am still impressed with its persistence!)
But if any place was going to make me a Beach Believer - it’s Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. But I don’t want to get too ahead of myself - there was probably a strong correlation between the fact that I was shooting photography in shorts and not freezing my rear off for a few days. I guess that would have made the Sahara attractive, also.
After this picture she made me get a haircut and beard trim.
As a rule - never the same place twice. We established it when we decided that travel was going to be one of our things. There’s too much to see and very little time to do it. But for the amount of pictures I took and some of the places we didn’t even get to, I could justify a rule bend pretty easily to finish the project. Or just another beach...dunno.
The objective of this trip was waves. Big waves, with big glorious evening light driving through the froth and spray just blowing it up. Few sub-missions here:
Looking to strive closer to one of the photographers I admire the most in the Landscape world - Nick Page and very specifically this photo,
Practice and get settings established for our trip to the Pacific North-West this summer - which is a ton of coastal,
and make a video of all the happenings.
Sub-missions 1 and 2 were satisfied to my liking. 3…not so much. The morning I took out the ole’ (brand spanking new) GoPro to start grabbing some b-reel, it decided to stop working after about 30 minutes. Not sure why - but after charging it over lunch, troubleshooting via instruction from the bowels of YouTube and Reddit, there was still no joy. So, chatted with support, they sent me a return label to action when we got back home to receive the replacement, and a pretty critical piece of equipment was down for the count. Shipped it off today actually - so we will see how this goes. I suppose the learning is have a Plan B. I carry two cameras for a reason - same thing for the filming I suppose. BUT - I did pull the memory card to get what I had shot, took the remainder of any video from the phone and carried on. There should be enough to put together something decent in Final Cut.
For the missions that did go well, it was a great. I think I nailed the waves. Quick shutter, adjust for light, frame and shoot. Used the heavy ProMaster Tripod just due to wind and water. It definitely held its own getting hit by surf and other impacts. Much more than my travel Three Legged Thing would have. But man…salt water and sand do.not.mix with tripod legs - so frequent preventive maintenance was needed. Actually - with the sand nightly, if not hourly, maintenance was needed on just about everything. The only thing that didn’t work out this trip is the type of light I was looking for - but nothing a bit more moisture in the air and other environmental factors won’t care for in the more humid North-West. But good practice overall. Head down to take a look at a couple of the pics focused on waves and then read on to hear about our PLANETS!
Foam - really wanted to focus on utility of the ultra-wide with this shot. 14mm means you need to get close - and that is where this G-Master lens does its magic. Near focal lengths with gorgeous bokeh or anything low light astrological makes this lens worth every penny. Love the blue layers in the backdrop with the great detail in the foam. Needed a bit of an angle to pull you back to the picture where we see a house on the cliffside and those gorgeous jungle topped mountains.
Lit - I think the more and more I shoot with it - 50mm is my focal length. Most closely representing our own vision, I feel changed perspective from here is probably the most reasonable and realistic. Love the detail of this sunset shot - but was really focused on grabbing the detail in the top crest of the middle-left wave. This was an exercise in patience - focusing to a point and just waiting and waiting and waiting for the right wave to come into my waiting focus.
Splash - the lighting for this shot was made for practice. Although, I am fairly certain they were on to highlight for wandering guests who perhaps had over indulged and declaring mother nature, “…can’t hurt me - I am invincible!!!” plunge into the surf to only find out how fragile we humans really are. Regardless - I found use out of it to drop the ISO and really try to pull as much detail out of the entire wave as possible. Not too shabby - but water is fast.
Great practice. And then there was the moon. Near the end of our 5 days, it was smokin’! Take a look at the pics below and read about them, with last being a glimpse into our solar system, which you can see RIGHT NOW!
Full - shooting the moon is a decision. What do I want in this picture? Do I want the detail in the moon? Do I just want the effects of its glow? Do I want both? Well - when it is both - exposure bracketing and post blending is your option. Pull in just enough light to grab your shadow information but inevitably blowing out your highlights - which is stars and the moon itself. Then, pragmatically, blocking out all the light to grab the detail out of your light source - but of course this has to be in quick succession so that all the exposures align correctly, and the moon is FAST! Then you fold them all together in the end to blend the best of both worlds. Get it right - and you get something like the above. Could have worked in a focus stack to the mix to make everything crystal clear - but I like the fronds providing an unfocused bokeh in the foreground…and again…the moon moves really FAST!
Three - if you didn’t know - you do now. Starting now until the end of the month - you will be able to see 6 planets with a clear view of the sky, at certain times. A planet parade if you will. With this picture - you can see three of them - well aligned over the moon. Don’t ask me which planet is which, but I am fairly certain it is Saturn, Jupiter, and then Venus - left to right. It is supposed to peak on the 18th of January, most sources say. But then I have also read that the 25th could be the best time to look. No matter what - if you have a clear view of the SouthWest - you should be able to see at least two planets through mid-February.
Whelp - fun trip. Much needed thawing. And about 500 GB worth of data to go through…these just scratch the surface!
Set - Just a pretty sunset :)