Garrapata Tsunami Sea Stacks: Big Sur, California
More details in the LARGE version!
I was shooting early on this morning in Pacific Grove, and since it was raining, I decided to open up the back of my car and shoot some long zoom shots with my 70-200mm lens from inside. I only fired off a few shots of the big surf before a police officer told me to leave the area and proceeded to gate off all the pullouts along Pacific Grove. I thought that seemed odd, and looked on my phone for some answers on the NOAA weather site. I learned about the 8.8 earthquake in Chile, and the possible Tsunami here on the Northcoast of California.
Fast forward to mid-day, where a friend and I waited here at Garrapata State Park to see if we could see any Tsunami action. We saw some pretty big waves, but it was hard to tell what might have been a Tsunami or not. It was also raining, so we made a quick hike and I realized that we were looking at a spot I'd become familiar with here on Flickr. I instantly recognized this area from the shots of Patrick Smith, Saurabh Deoras, Jim Patterson, and many other photographers I enjoy on Flickr. We decided to come back for the sunset to get some good light and a break in the storm.
When we returned for the sunset, the storm had left the coast and the ocean was much less intense. After attempting a few wide angle comps, I decided that the best shot would be a sea stack photo with some big wave action. These waves chased me up the cobble beach several times and really made me nervous! Even though the ocean was more calm than earlier (during Tsunami arrival time), they really looked and sounded HUGE when running back and forth on this particular beach. I got a good workout from this shoot -a side benefit of photography!
Flickr Explore #127 3/2/2010
This is one single image, no HDR treatment.
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105L @80mm
0.3 second exposure @ F8
Lee soft ND grad .9 + .75 filters
ISO 50
Garrapata Tsunami Sea Stacks: Big Sur, California
More details in the LARGE version!
I was shooting early on this morning in Pacific Grove, and since it was raining, I decided to open up the back of my car and shoot some long zoom shots with my 70-200mm lens from inside. I only fired off a few shots of the big surf before a police officer told me to leave the area and proceeded to gate off all the pullouts along Pacific Grove. I thought that seemed odd, and looked on my phone for some answers on the NOAA weather site. I learned about the 8.8 earthquake in Chile, and the possible Tsunami here on the Northcoast of California.
Fast forward to mid-day, where a friend and I waited here at Garrapata State Park to see if we could see any Tsunami action. We saw some pretty big waves, but it was hard to tell what might have been a Tsunami or not. It was also raining, so we made a quick hike and I realized that we were looking at a spot I'd become familiar with here on Flickr. I instantly recognized this area from the shots of Patrick Smith, Saurabh Deoras, Jim Patterson, and many other photographers I enjoy on Flickr. We decided to come back for the sunset to get some good light and a break in the storm.
When we returned for the sunset, the storm had left the coast and the ocean was much less intense. After attempting a few wide angle comps, I decided that the best shot would be a sea stack photo with some big wave action. These waves chased me up the cobble beach several times and really made me nervous! Even though the ocean was more calm than earlier (during Tsunami arrival time), they really looked and sounded HUGE when running back and forth on this particular beach. I got a good workout from this shoot -a side benefit of photography!
Flickr Explore #127 3/2/2010
This is one single image, no HDR treatment.
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105L @80mm
0.3 second exposure @ F8
Lee soft ND grad .9 + .75 filters
ISO 50