• Autumn > Summer • [EXPLORE #1: 10/28/16]

Hermosa Beach and that sunset seem to look better to me each time I view my photos froom Monday evening. I reviewed them all quickly after getting home, but didn't go through them in too much depth. I picked a photo to edit from the set and when it was done, went through to find the next image. It usually isn't until I have posted a bunch from a shoot that I start to appreciate what I saw a little more. I could see it was a mostly cloudy day all Monday and for the 90 minutes I drove around trying to figure out where to wind up, the sky never gave me any indication it would let up before sundown. Sometimes out here that is the case, and it's always disappointing--especially if I sat in tons of traffic--to realize that the clouds won't be there anymore when I arrive.

 

As I mentioned, I'd only to been to Hermosa Beach once back in the first week of January and it wasn't much of a visit. Scotch and I drove all over exploring from about 5am until 2pm and my experience at Hermosa was limited to the main road, high above the beach and closer to Redondo. It was about 5pm when I got to the edge of Manhattan beach on Monday night and the main street that passes by all the shops and restaurants was nearly empty and only a few people were wandering around. Even the parking lot closest to the Pier at Hermosa was half empty which was obviously great. Maybe it's just a sleepy town at the beginning of a week in Autumn or maybe I just had a really lucky experience.

 

The sky was great and once set up, I realized I would be mostly shooting into the sun which was above the pier and going in and out of a mass of clouds. I assumed I could just get some shots off and play around with positioning and exposure times until the colors got richer and the sunset was near. I love that the sunset is early again since it means I don't have to get home after 10pm but I do wish it would last longer. I think Autumn sunsets will always be my favorite type, though I prefer autumn overall anyway. Cool, colorful overcast weather is hard to beat for me whether here or back in the DC area. I could see the magenta tones forming before sundown in the middle, though they were more of a salmon color at that point. With the yellow sky getting more and more saturated with orange, I knew those pinkish clouds would darken soon as well and once they did, it was quite a sight.

 

I always have the same dilemma at sundown: get a more natural looking sky and detail in the surf with a series of shorter exposure times or go all in and take a small handful of multi minute exposures that could produce amazing results but also have such little margin for error at this time of night. There's always a chance that long exposures could waste the entire sunset for me and even if they are exposed well, could still make the scene more boring if the clouds move too much and become a solid dark mass or too little and then they look much worse than a quick shutter speed. The shorter sunsets mean much less time to experiment and it was hard to estimate exposure time since the light was fading with each shot and it I couldn't exactly made adjustments solely on the previous capture. Of all the long exposure images I took on the day, maybe only a half dozen or so turned out how I was hoping.

 

It was a little breezy and the waves were bigger than what I got used to in Venice. Further, the shoreline was shorter and more sloped so I wasn't going to be getting the mirror like reflections I grew to expect on the flat shores of Venice. Here, however, the sun dropped straight over the pier which is impossible at Venice where it seems to only break between Venice Pier and Santa Monica Pier. If the sun was closer to that pier, I'd have spent a lot more time by it rather than sticking to that one area I always shoot. The waves at Hermosa were great though and after setting up for a quicker shutter time, I'd fire off a few as the they began to crash hoping there'd be a couple that were more interesting than the rest. This was one of the images I liked the best from that set. I shot a few with the flat surf pushing towards me after the wave broke but this was one of the only times I got a wave that curled completely across the frame. The sky was the highlight for me obviously, but this wave really adds a lot of drama to the otherwise peaceful shot. The solid yellowish orange lined up with the short section of beach in front of me and it created a really nice golden sheen on the wet sand.

 

I wish I had moved around more while here since it didn't occur to me until I was packing up to leave that I literally 100% of the shots I took have the pier just to my left and are at relatively similar focal lengths. I was happy in this one spot and by the time the sky looked like this, there were others lined up with their tripods to my right and my only option would've been to run far to the right or quickly set up far to the left of the pier. I think my spot on the beach was ideal though and was glad I was first on the scene. I have another half dozen or so images from monday night that I have yet to post and tonight I headed to Hollywood Bowl Overlook for a little so I will mix some of those in as well. With the overcast weather finally back, I have a feeling my shooting will start outpacing my posts again which I'm really thankful for. Months of cloudless skies and hazy sunsets depleted my archives and I'm ready to fill them back up :)

 

▪️WHEN & WHERE▪️

•Hermosa Beach Pier

•Hermosa Beach, California

•October 24th, 2016

 

▪️SETTINGS▪️

•Canon T4i

•EF-S 18-135mm IS STM

•@22mm

•ISO 100

•f/9

•1/8th second

•CPL

Done