Slow Exposures at the Beach
Ah.... Autumn is here and that means I get to start going to the beach again! Yes, I know, most people go to the beach in the summer. That's why I wait until after the summer - the crowds are gone and, often, I can have the beach to myself. I'm also not one to "sunbathe" - I go to shoot. I like shooting long exposures, especially when there is moving water, but here I am talking about "slow", not "long" exposures. These images were shot between 1/3 and 1/13 second; I will give exposure information at the end of the post.
The Fishing Pier
I recently took some vacation time and my wife and I went to
Ocean Grove late one afternoon. The day was hazy and hot with a rather strong breeze - the landscape was flat and dull but I had my gear with me and was determined to shoot. In my years as a landscape photographer I have learned to make lemonade from lemons; when the grand landscape is unphotogenic, it is time to look small and get tight. The tide was rising which was to my advantage, as was the strong breeze.
If you are familiar with the pier at
Ocean Grove, you may remember the shack at the end where the fishing club met and fished. (You can see a couple images of the old pier in my blog post titled,
God's Square Mile - Ocean Grove, New Jersey) The pier was destroyed in 2012 when Superstorm Sandy blew thru; most of it was rebuilt but they stopped short at where the shack was located. Today there are some of the original pilings and a few broken ones. I decided to concentrate on a broken one that was being hit by incoming waves.
It seemed as though Mother Nature knew what my plans were and decided to have some fun at my expense. As soon as I got my gear set up and decided on my composition, the breeze subsided a bit and the waves lessened in their size. The water was still getting to the broken piling but there was nothing dramatic. I have been playing this game too long to think it was going to be easy - one of the first things you learn about landscape photography is that conditions are always changing and there are no guarantees.
It didn't take long before the wind picked up and waves started coming in a bit bigger. Still, I wasn't getting the violent crash with a great amount of spray that I was looking for. It took 10 or 15 minutes of nothing and "near misses" before I got the shot labeled "Fishing Pier #1". It looked good on the back of the camera but I took a few more, just in case. I liked that particular piling but wanted to try a different composition so I moved back a bit towards the end of the pier. My original idea was to frame the broken piling with new ones on either side - it wasn't a
bad composition but I think the image labeled "Fishing Pier #2" is better. You can see shadows of the other pilings and tell that it was quite late in the day.
The Jetty
Just to the north of the pier is a small jetty - you can see some of it in
Fishing Pier #2. I tried a few images after I finished with the pier but wasn't happy with the way the water was playing with the rocks. I went back a couple days later to re-focus on the jetty and came away with the images presented here. The wind wasn't blowing nearly as hard as previously and the tide was a bit higher and still rising. My goal was still to get crashing waves and dramatic spray but I also wanted to capture some fluidity in the water. I wanted some flowing over and around the rocks. In some ways shooting the jetty was easier and in others it was harder. It was easier because the conditions were better and I had far more compositions to choose from. It was more difficult because it was a more complex subject and that made predicting how the water would act a lot more challenging.
There were times when I caught a nice splash but the pooling water didn't look quite right or water spilling over the rocks completely obscured them. Other times I had some great flow but there was no splash. The images shown here were shot on the north side of the jetty, I moved to the other side before leaving but there were no images to be had; the water was breaking from the north and so the waves were not crashing over the rocks on the south side of the jetty. I did a few test shots of the rocks at the south tip - the ones you can see in "Fishing Pier #2" - but there was nothing, nor did I get any good images when I got on top of the jetty and shot out to sea.
In Conclusion
Overall, I would say that both sessions were successful but they left me with wanting more. I can't wait to get back to the beach and explore more possibilities with both the pier and the jetty. There are other jetties along the Ocean Grove beach and I will explore them, too. Other towns have their own piers and jetties, each with their own unique characteristics. There is also the option of using long exposures - 10, 20, 30 seconds or more. The longer exposures will require using neutral density filters and while I do have a set of filters, stacking them to give me exposures of those lengths can cause issues (see my review of the filters -
Product Review: Formatt-Hitech Filters) so it may be a while before I can plan the really long exposures. I also want to do some long exposures - in the range of 1 to 10 seconds - during sunrise and sunset.
What experience have you had shooting slow exposures? Have you shot at the beach like I did or some other subject? I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences - leave a comment below.
Exposure Information
| Image | Shutter speed | Aperture | Focal length |
|---|
| Fishing Pier #1 | 1/13 second | f/16 | 100 mm |
| Fishing Pier #2 | 1/10 second | f/32 | 41 mm |
| The Jetty #1 | 1/3 second | f/22 | 31 mm |
| The Jetty #2 | 1/5 second | f/22 | 21 mm |
| The Jetty #3 | 1/3 second | f/22 | 19 mm |
All photos are copyright Joseph S. Valencia All Rights Reserved They may not be used in any way without express written permission of the photographer. If you wish to use any of the photos you may contact the photographer at valencia32photo@gmail.com
