Morning at the Beach - Landscape Photography

When is a wide angle too wide

There are times when in landscape photography, a wide angle lens is just simply too wide.  When the sky has nothing to offer, but it's color, and when the ground has nothing to offer either.  It's not easy sometimes to photograph the mood of a landscape, when the sky is blue, and the ground is flat and feature less.  Yet there is a certain mood in the air, like that morning on the beach.  There was a mist coming from the ocean, and hanging low on the beach, but the sky was featureless and I had to work hard to find something interesting on the ground.

Big Zoom

This is a perfect time, when the big zooms come out to play in landscape photography.  This is a perfect time to focus on something far away, instead of up close, and that's what I did.  The mist coming out of the ocean, created this incredible mood.  The people walking along the beach became ghosts, appearing and disappearing.  With a long zoom, you can capture a beautiful mood, and add a completely genuine human element to the landscape.  Here are some shots from that beautiful morning.  Enjoy!

Mac

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Long Beach - Landscape Photography

Long Beach... Here we come!

After a full day of traveling from Vancouver, we finally managed to get across to Vancouver Island.  Personally I though the trip across the island to the west coast is going to be relatively short and smooth.  I was wrong.  The nice smooth highways turned, narrow and winding very quickly, and that slowed us down considerably.   It would be a great place for some wonderful landscape photography, unfortunately the roads being so narrow, there was hardly any place to pull over.  This is the time where you soak up the landscape and store it, not on a digital memory card, but a biological memory card in your mind.  It's not easy, being presented with really spectacular British Columbia landscapes, and not being able to capture it with our cameras.  We also had our destination, and a search for a place to stay to consider, and the day was coming to an end.

Arrived

After a long and tiring drive across Vancouver Island, we have finally arrived at the west coast, and started searching for a place to stay.  Almost immediately we found a small bed & breakfast that was quite reasonably priced and very nice.  Still had some a couple of hours, before the sun went down into the ocean, so we drove around looking for a good spot for a beach landscape photography :) . Windy, sand blowing, and a little cold, the beach was far from what we expected.  I dared not the change lenses on the camera, and even though I didn't, I still ended up with a whole bunch of sensor spots on the Sony cameras.  Fuji X-Pro 1, faired a lot better.  No spots, even though it was blasted with beach sand just as bad as the Sony NEX cameras.  Interesting.  Here is what I managed to capture during the last hours of that long day.  Enjoy!

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Beautiful British Columbia - Part 6 - Travel Photography

Long Beach, one of the most known places in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on Vancouver Island.  Quite a beautiful place, full of sand and driftwood. We have visited it one misty morning (with one short stop in the evening), taking a long walk, enjoying a breeze and the sound of waves.  Lot's of cool stuff to find and take pictures of! As beautiful in the morning as it is in the evening sun.. We were lucky to get a very good light both times (which is not always the case with travel photography) and here is a few pictures I have taken while visiting.  To check our previous post, just click on the following link: Beautiful British Columbia - Part 5 - Travel Photography. Kasia

When we were leaving the beach the second time, I could not resist taking picture of these shoes hanging on the wires.  It's funny, but I think I have seen such things everywhere I have visited.. What is it with people's need to leave them like that?!

To be continued..

Beautiful British Columbia - Part 5 - Travel Photography

Our adventure with travel photography continues.  Some of what we saw before you can check out in my previous post: Beautiful British Columbia - Part 4 - Travel Photography. We've spent a couple of gorgeous evenings at Chesterman Beach. It is one of only a few places on this end of Vancouver Island (close to Tofino) where you can enjoy a sunset.  It was a bit chilly with a strong wind picking up sand that was showering us mercilessly and I was glad I took both my cameras with me, because I wouldn't dare to change a lens in those conditions. And there was a lot of things to capture and without my 200mm lens I would miss out on a lot of shots.. But even if I was there without them I would still enjoy both evenings a lot. It is so relaxing to walk on a beach, watch other people going on their strolls, listening to the waves crashing around you.  Add to it a beautiful sunset and you are in for a treat! Here is a few shots from both  outings. I hope you enjoy!

Kasia

To be continued..

Beautiful British Columbia - Part 4 - Travel Photography

After a day of hiking around Vancouver (see Beautiful British Columbia - Part 3 - Travel Photography - our visit to Lynn Valley) we've decided to do a bit less walking and took a drive to the Horseshoe Bay to explore it a bit and search for a location for a sunset.  We've stopped at a few places along the way and ended up staying for a few hours on a little rocky beach. Don't ask me where these shots were taken, because after a while I completely lost any idea of where we were.. The tide was still pretty low, when we've arrived and it allowed me to take my macro lens and take a closer look at some barnacles and seaweed as well as the surrounding views.  The unfortunate thing about travel photography is that we can't always wait for a better light, having limited time at a certain location. But even with that in mind, using a bit of a different angle one can manage to get a few lovely shots. Here is a few of those from that outing.. Kasia

To be continued..

Beautiful British Columbia - Part 2 - Travel Photography

Jericho Park with its beach were for us the first place to visit in Vancouver, BC.  We have been very lucky to bring with us sunny weather and we were definitely enjoying our evening stroll in the park and the beach.  As I have mentioned in my previous post - Beautiful British Columbia - Part 1 - Travel Photography travel photography allows us to practice shooting in all sorts of environments and this was a pleasure to do so with shiny water, reflecting the sun and in dark shade of park trees.. Here is some of what I saw and captured during our visit.. Kasia

To be continued...

Goodnight to California... and goodbye

I thought what better way to finish the series of posts from California and Disneyland, then with a lovely sunset at Santa Monica beach.  As typical to any sunset at the beach, lots of people came out. There were even some guys that had tripods, huge backpacks and set themselves up right by the ocean.  Personally if I had that gear with me I would probably find some secluded part of the beach so people do not walk in front of the camera, but that's just me.  So goodbye California, hope to see you someday....

Santa Monica

What would a vacation in California be, without seeing the ocean, and sampling of at least one beach?  I thought exactly the same thing.... so off we went to Santa Monica.  Yes there are closer beaches to Anaheim, but Santa Monica it was for a few reasons.  The main reason, was that we were meeting up with an awesome photographer there, namely Christa Meola.  I'll get to that meeting in a later post.... but let's just say, this has made my day.  It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, albeit a little too windy at times.  The ocean was surprisingly warm.  At least warm  enough to get your legs wet.  The kids had a blast.  At one point my youngest, Sebastian, got pulled in a little by a retreating wave, and fell into the water..... of course I was snapping pictures :) ... Enjoy.