Getting Crazy with the Cheese Whiz

I was just going crazy in photoshop, layer upon layer... having some fun. Why not.... anyway for some reason it reminded me of some Beck Lyrics.

Wave Flight

I've got to start getting down to the beach in the morning. It's not like I sleep in, so I've got no excuse. Scenes like this make it worth standing in the cold.

Approaching Storm

Be careful what you wish for.

Die dulce fruere

I just don't know

Sometimes it's okay not to have all the answers.

Window to the Past

Just a reminder of the passage of time.

A Helping Hand

I made a special trip down to the beach just before sunset, as there was an approaching storm, which meant lots of clouds in the sky.

Clouds have possibilities, they can turn the sky into incredible colors, or they can make for a dull gray dud of a "sunset".

Luck was on my side. The sky lit up and it started to rain slightly. There was a couple on the beach along with me. When the rain started, they were quickly trying to get off the rocks they were sitting on to make the long trek back to wherever they had come from.

In that moment I was able to capture an inspirational image of love and friendship, just before I too had to double time it out of there.

I'm glad I took the chance on the sunset. Now a frozen moment in time.

Golden Beach

This image is the reason I shoot in manual mode (which isn't the case here). I usually set my aperture and do a test shot in aperture priority mode to see what the camera thinks the shutter speed should be.

What you are seeing here is what the scene looked like, but that's after lots of post processing. I had to bring the exposure up by a stop and a half and add some fill light. All done in Photoshop.

I have shots done in manual mode where I didn't have do this. The test shot told me right away that the camera was underexposing the image. All the more reason for doing it. Test shots quickly get me in the range I want to be in for a certain aperture by either dialing up or down the shutter speeds, or even changing the aperture.

My point here is that you can quickly get better results if you let your camera assist you. Take some test shots and dial in your settings to get the results you're after.

Why did I even bother keeping this shot? HDR - I can use it with other shots I took, but that's another subject.