A Wave of Progression?
You'd think I'd have got the hang of this sort of thing by now. I mean, I've only lived beside the sea for pretty much my entire existence after all. We get monstrous ocean waves like this every winter. Plenty of opportunities to hide under the duvet...........erm I mean venture out into the elements in my wellies and sou'wester, to face the latest sou'wester that the Atlantic has sent over and attempt to capture the excitement. But every time I've tried, I've come away feeling disappointed at myself. Surely it can't be that difficult to struggle out of the car, point the camera at a huge thundering wave, take a couple of snaps and then go home to dabble about in Lightroom and Photoshop can it?
Last time I attempted to photograph big waves was in Lanzarote in November. I fact I think I've a shot worth sharing from that adventure, taken, yes again using the 100-400. I'll come back to that one later. Prior to that, I have to go back in time to one Saturday lunchtime precisely twelve months, when Storm Arwen, the first of that winter season arrived and attempted to batter down our front doors. Over a two hour period on the beach at Portreath I took almost six hundred handheld frames, mostly in burst mode. When I got home and worked on them, even those that were taken in bright sunshine looked positively anaemic in the final edits. Eventually I posted "The Sorcerer and the Sea," a huge tower of spray to the west of Gull Rock giving the image its title. The sorcerer himself was such an extraordinary sight that I had to post the image and story, but in truth I wasn't at all happy with the edit. The foreground wave had no contrast at all, no matter how I tried to lift it, and a further crop was going to bring the base of Gull Rock too close to the border of the image for my liking. "Publish and be damned." One of those - there was a story to be told, and a mass of white spray that seemed almost unbelievable. Otherwise, I would have consigned it to the bin and forgotten it.
But just recently, something made me want to revisit the wave images from that day. With another year of education in the editing suite behind me, I felt sure I could do something to improve the contrast in particular. This was the first image I decided I'd attempt to remaster (or re-bungle) and after a certain amount of pushing and pulling with a considerable number of layer masks I felt I was getting somewhere at last. Finally it seemed I had managed to darken the sky without affecting the crest of the wave too noticeably, and finally I was managing to bring out the contrast needed to make the image pop. Maybe, just maybe the lessons I'd learned from Mads' online Photoshop course were starting to bear some fruit. It needed a heavy crop, but then again I never knew about high pass filters and Topaz noise reduction layers before. Even at 400mm on the crop body that wave seemed to be a long way away. I tried a further edit of the Sorcerer and the Sea, but I still can't get it to work - neither in colour nor in black and white. More practice needed then.
In fact we're still waiting for a big hoolie to hit the coast here this winter, but I'm holding out my hopes for February. That's when it usually gets a bit interesting as the tail end of winter ramps up and delivers its last assaults. Like the errant schoolboy with the disappointing report, I'm hoping to make a better impression next time. But wave photography remains a bit of a mystery, that I'm still attempting to unravel. It doesn't help that down the road resides the finest exponent of ocean wave photography I know in the form of one Mark Dobson - or Wild Seascapes as his moniker goes. Mark is a genius at this stuff. So highly regarded is he by those in the lofty plains of YouTube, that Nigel Danson recently featured his work one Sunday morning. Sadly, Mark doesn't have a presence on Flickr, but you can find him on Vero and Instagram under "Wild Seascapes." I'd love to know where he stands to get such extraordinary side on images to such huge storm waves without needing a frogman's outfit and a waterproof camera, but I'm always struck dumb by the quality of his results. I guess if I keep on trying I can only get a little bit closer to the gold standard. Bronze standard will do to be honest. Just need a storm of two to pass by and a thermos full of coffee on hand, and away we go again.
Mark's website: www.wildseascapes.co.uk/
The Sorcerer and the Sea : www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/51710521748/in/datepo...
A Wave of Progression?
You'd think I'd have got the hang of this sort of thing by now. I mean, I've only lived beside the sea for pretty much my entire existence after all. We get monstrous ocean waves like this every winter. Plenty of opportunities to hide under the duvet...........erm I mean venture out into the elements in my wellies and sou'wester, to face the latest sou'wester that the Atlantic has sent over and attempt to capture the excitement. But every time I've tried, I've come away feeling disappointed at myself. Surely it can't be that difficult to struggle out of the car, point the camera at a huge thundering wave, take a couple of snaps and then go home to dabble about in Lightroom and Photoshop can it?
Last time I attempted to photograph big waves was in Lanzarote in November. I fact I think I've a shot worth sharing from that adventure, taken, yes again using the 100-400. I'll come back to that one later. Prior to that, I have to go back in time to one Saturday lunchtime precisely twelve months, when Storm Arwen, the first of that winter season arrived and attempted to batter down our front doors. Over a two hour period on the beach at Portreath I took almost six hundred handheld frames, mostly in burst mode. When I got home and worked on them, even those that were taken in bright sunshine looked positively anaemic in the final edits. Eventually I posted "The Sorcerer and the Sea," a huge tower of spray to the west of Gull Rock giving the image its title. The sorcerer himself was such an extraordinary sight that I had to post the image and story, but in truth I wasn't at all happy with the edit. The foreground wave had no contrast at all, no matter how I tried to lift it, and a further crop was going to bring the base of Gull Rock too close to the border of the image for my liking. "Publish and be damned." One of those - there was a story to be told, and a mass of white spray that seemed almost unbelievable. Otherwise, I would have consigned it to the bin and forgotten it.
But just recently, something made me want to revisit the wave images from that day. With another year of education in the editing suite behind me, I felt sure I could do something to improve the contrast in particular. This was the first image I decided I'd attempt to remaster (or re-bungle) and after a certain amount of pushing and pulling with a considerable number of layer masks I felt I was getting somewhere at last. Finally it seemed I had managed to darken the sky without affecting the crest of the wave too noticeably, and finally I was managing to bring out the contrast needed to make the image pop. Maybe, just maybe the lessons I'd learned from Mads' online Photoshop course were starting to bear some fruit. It needed a heavy crop, but then again I never knew about high pass filters and Topaz noise reduction layers before. Even at 400mm on the crop body that wave seemed to be a long way away. I tried a further edit of the Sorcerer and the Sea, but I still can't get it to work - neither in colour nor in black and white. More practice needed then.
In fact we're still waiting for a big hoolie to hit the coast here this winter, but I'm holding out my hopes for February. That's when it usually gets a bit interesting as the tail end of winter ramps up and delivers its last assaults. Like the errant schoolboy with the disappointing report, I'm hoping to make a better impression next time. But wave photography remains a bit of a mystery, that I'm still attempting to unravel. It doesn't help that down the road resides the finest exponent of ocean wave photography I know in the form of one Mark Dobson - or Wild Seascapes as his moniker goes. Mark is a genius at this stuff. So highly regarded is he by those in the lofty plains of YouTube, that Nigel Danson recently featured his work one Sunday morning. Sadly, Mark doesn't have a presence on Flickr, but you can find him on Vero and Instagram under "Wild Seascapes." I'd love to know where he stands to get such extraordinary side on images to such huge storm waves without needing a frogman's outfit and a waterproof camera, but I'm always struck dumb by the quality of his results. I guess if I keep on trying I can only get a little bit closer to the gold standard. Bronze standard will do to be honest. Just need a storm of two to pass by and a thermos full of coffee on hand, and away we go again.
Mark's website: www.wildseascapes.co.uk/
The Sorcerer and the Sea : www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/51710521748/in/datepo...