• A Glorious Return To Venice • [EXPLORE #3: 9/20/16]

Well...I finally returned to Venice tonight. I had my fingers crossed the entire 53 minute drive that the intermittent rain drops wouldn't turn into a shower and that the very cloudy sky wouldn't vanish prior to my arrival. The rain never came and the clouds were still there long after I left.

 

A lot has changed in my photography and post abilities since I arrived in California Christmas Eve. While those first few trips to Venice in January and February were amazing, I struggled a bit to be efficient. The reflections, sky and quickly fading winter light left me in a frenzy to get in a lot of long exposures, reflections and shots of the pier in no real order and despite taking roughly a 1,000 shots during those trips, many were unusable. I was focused on getting it all in and hoping somewhere in the quantity was some quality. I have a much better plan now and all the time spent the last couple months capturing Scotch in those very low light settings forced me to be a lot more precise with my shooting decisions and gave me a better understanding of what it means to be patient. I was very hopeful that some of those aspects I've been trying to refine would yield a much more consistent set of shots this time around.

 

Venice is an amazing place. The low tide that slowly pushes across the shore was even more recessed tonight, perhaps 30ft closer to the sea and the flat reflection shore seemed like it was 200 feet long. There were perfect reflections everywhere and every direction. I arrived about a half hour before sunset and set up to shoot some very low angle reflections. As the light shifted between me and Santa Monica, I abandoned the pier and focused on the crimson sunset. As with previous trips, a dozen or so people showed up with camera phones out a few minute before and after the sunset and then scattered off to whenever they were going before. I saw a sky similar to this here back in january and still look at and post photos from that trip. Each time i saw the sky like this in Venice, it was in the exact same spot and seemed to appear almost in an instant. I took a few long exposures to start with the 10 stop filter, but then decided to get natural looking shots and tried hard to frame well for a panorama since I didn't want to cut out any of this sky and had no desire to back up.

 

My last trip here came in March and was a major disappointment due to weather conditions, an overall bad shoot, a parking ticket and a smashed rear bumper. Ever since, I've hoped for a return of clouds and a colorful sky and with a favorable forecast I decided to return tonight and was so glad I did. This is a 3 photo panorama. The rocks on the right sit right by the giant lifeguard headquarters which separates Venice from Santa Monica it seems. This is my favorite spot in Venice to shoot and far enough from the pier to at least give me a chance to find street parking. I have the feeling that Venice will end up as my default location for sunsets though I definitely won't stop exploring the Southern California coast any time soon. Seems like I'm going to be here a while...

 

▪️WHEN & WHERE▪️

•Venice Beach

•Venice, California

•September 19th, 2016

 

▪️SETTINGS▪️

Canon T4i

•EF-S18-135mm IS STM

•3 photo panorama

•@18mm

•ISO 100

•f/5

•1/135th second

•CPL

Done