Nobody's Perfect
Now a days, people can find great photos and photographers everywhere. All over the internet, Facebook, Instagram, 500px, a photographer can find inspiration all over the place…..
When looking at all the great photos and the skill of some of these photographers, young aspiring photographers can sometimes get intimidated about the images that they share. What I want to do is to show you, that nobody is perfect. Even with the digital age that we are in, photographers miss shots for numerous reasons.
This blog is not meant to tell you that I think I am a great photographer by any means. More to show you, that even someone that posts the occasional good photo still requires a lot of trial and error to get that one good photo to post on social media, or my website. With using digital it is a lot easier to shoot as much as you want. My theory is to shoot 50 image to get 1 that absolutely stands out. If I do that, then I fell that I have been successful.
To back that point up a little bit. My last time in the water shooting shorebreak was last week:
- I shot 538 picturers
- I deleted 120 off of my camera. The rest were imported into Lightroom.
- I then deleted another 201 images after seeing something in the image that I didn't like (waterspots, really out of focus, etc.)
- Of the final 217, I edited 74 images.
- Of the ones I edited, I exported 49 images out of Lightroom.
- Of that, only 2 images will be used on my website. The other 47 will be used for various posts on social media.
Here are some images that would otherwise have been deleted off my camera or would have never made it out of Lightroom…
This image i thought would have been okay, however I missed my focus point using my 50mm at a low F stop.
I think I had some water spots on my port which messed up about half of the image.
I whipped my camera around a little to quick and missed the back of the wave...
This one was just way to over exposed. My focus point is a little off as well..
On the other end.. this one was a little under exposed. This is sometimes tough when shooting from the water with flash because you can have everything exposed correctly, until about this point of the wave, and then your exposure is a little darker than I would like it..
I was shooing at a lower F stop on this shot. I would have liked this a little more if I was shooting at a little higher so more was in focus. Or if I had my focus a little deeper in the barrel.
Water spots are a water photographers worst enemy..
I would have really liked this shot, but I had my flash to high and the water is to bright for my liking.
I hope this gives people a little glimps of things that would never come out of my lightroom. I hope you liked seeing this little BTS.
La Jolla Clarity
In January, which was my first month back in the water since my knee injury, the clarity was some of the best that I have ever seen in La Jolla or California for that matter. There had not been a lot of swell for a couple of weeks which helped clear out a lot of the kelp and sea grass that had been in the water.
Here are some of the images showing off the clarity….
I really liked the detail on this upclose vortex.
You can view more of these images (in larger size) as well as others showing the clarity from these days in my Recent's folder.
Getting Salty...
My little bit of hell is over. Being out of the water for 2 months as the California winters swells start hitting our shores was brutal. Seeing all my buddies from La Jolla and Laguna scoring left and right. Wishing I was able to join them. All that is now over. I went out for a swim a couple of days after Christmas. I didn’t intend to shoot, but after a little swim, I found that the waves were not really big and that the current was not strong. My knee felt pretty good so I decided to grab my housing and camera out of the car and do a little shooting. And by a little, I mean two hours. And then another 3 hours the following morning. I had no pain in my knee and am fully healed up after the sprained MCL.
The first two days I was back in the water, the clarity was off the charts. Some of the best that I have seen not just in La Jolla, but anywhere. Here are some of the shots from those mornings..
This was one of my favorite vortex I shot up until this time.
This is my buddy Jeff behind the wave.
Here is a little sequence that I shot... You can see how I am positioned in the water and the amount of frames I get in a given wave. Thats why the knowledge of the water is so important.
I loved the contrast in this image...
If you would like to see more from my first two days back in the water... Go to http://surfingeye.com/recents and take a look at some of my better shots from these two days... Hope you enjoy!
Gotta do something...
While I had my knee on the mend and I was not allowed in the water, I tried work a lot on the other forms of photography that I do… Mostly on my landscape photography…
I tried to go a few different places around San Diego while working on this.
My gear for these shots is:
· Canon 5D mark3
· Canon 17-40 f/4 lens
· Hoya 4 stop ND Filter
· Manfrotto tripod
I don’t use a remote trigger (although I do have on) for most of my landscape and long exposures. I normally will change the camera to a 2 sec delay after I click.
I would love to know what you think of these shots in the comments section..
You can see a few more in my "Recents" gallery...
Missing the View....
As some may know, I have been dealing with a knee injury suffered while in the water in the first week of November. The injury is a sprain to my MCL in my left knee. Anyone who has been in the water shooting photos, body boarding, etc, knows what a beating you can take in the water. On this particular occasion, I was standing it about 2 inches of water. A wave came a long and it was so strong and powerful, that when it started sucking the sand up, it trapped my left foot in the sand. When the wave threw, it took my upper body with it, but left my left foot and knee trapped there. Needless to say… it hurt… It felt like my knee cap was floating around in a bowl of jelly…
Lucky for me, that is all I did. No surgery, but also no water activities either… I have about 3 more weeks to go before I can get back in… and I am counting the days…
Here are some shots that I took from the water prior to the injury…
You can see more in my “Recent” gallery as well… ENJOY!
Don't forget, you can still get 20% off all canvas print orders from now until the end of the year... Use "Holiday14" at checkout...
Here is a little shot sequence...
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This was the wave that I hurt my knee on.....
Oahu....
Anytime you hop on a flight to leave San Diego, it's hard to think that you are going somewhere more beautiful than where you just came from. However, when your destination is Oahu, Hawaii it makes it much easier.
I was lucky enough to get to spend the better part of six days on the island simply to do photography. My goal was to break out of my comfort zone of wave photography and try to take different sorts of shots other than just waves from inside the water… I wanted to highlight the beauty that I saw while I was there.
I spent most of my time on the North Shore, but did try to do some exploring around the island. I am going to share some of the images here, as well as my new Oahu Gallery. I hope you enjoy…
You can check out more of my favorites from these shoots at: http://surfingeye.com/oahu2014
Sunsets from Sharks Cove look good...even underwater...
More over/under sunsets from Sharks Cove
I went to the beach to shoot with the big green sea turtles on this morning.. so I just tried to find something else to shoot..
All the these waves shots were taken while on the North Shore. Summer is traditionally very flat from a wave standpoint... so I was a little lucky to get any waves that I did...
This was the view I got to wake up to every day out side my rental on the North Shore...
More from Keiki's beach...
Just some of the images that I took while roaming around the Island...
Can't go to Oahu without making a trip to Sandy's beach...
While shooting from the water is fun at Sandy's, it is always nice to play with new angles...
I love playing with Big Green Sea Turtles...
Lastly, while waiting to board my flight in San Diego, I saw my friend and owner of SPL Waterhousing (who I use) Sean LaBrie. Him and met up a few times to shoot waves and turtles. Sean was testing out his custom housing for his 1Dx. Good times!
Remember, if you like what you have seen here, make sure to check out my Oahu 2014 Gallery...
Thanks...
New Port
In anticipation for my upcoming trip to HI next week, I wanted to get a new port to do some underwater shooting with. So I decided on a flat port for my Canon 17-40 f/4 lens. I got it with the zoom so I can change the distance while in the water. I have tested it out a couple of times in La Jolla over the last week. Not too much shooting underwater with it her in SoCal due to the water clarity, but I have liked the results with it so far. I am stoked to see what I come away with in Oahu…
What do you think on these shots?
This final shot was something I was testing out the ISO on my camera. Shot at 1/500 sec, at F/4.5 and 1250 ISO.
More shots from this new port test can be found at http://surfingeye.com/recents
Look for more from Oahu coming soon....
The Wedge..In all it's glory
The first good South Swell of the summer hit the coast of Southern California this past weekend. It didn’t disappoint those who were on the coast to witness it in Newport were treated to a wonderful show…
I woke up at 3 am on Sunday morning to make the trip up to The Wedge to be there before sunrise. When I got there at 4:50am it was still pitch black out. I open the door to my car to walk down to the beach, and for those who have never been to The Wedge, the street is a good 300-400 yards away from the beach, and can hear the waves break clear as day. When you hear that, you know it’s big..
After walking down to check the surf, then going back to get in my car to get ready, I head back down to the beach. Housing (w/ flash) in hand. I get in the water and notice immediately that the current was strong… Stronger than I have felt in a long time. That coupled with how steep the beach was with all the water rushing back from the waves that just broke, and it was making it very difficult for me to stay in the position that I wanted to be in…
After getting tossed up the beach more times in an hour than I have in the last 2 years, I realized that Sunday was not my day. So, I changed out of my water gear and headed back to the beach. I was really happy though with the stuff I got from land… Hope you enjoy..
This was one of the only shots I got from the water that was worth keeping...
This shot currently has more than 10K in views on Surfline.com
You can see more from this day on my Surfline Local Pro profile.
Radio Silence ..... Is over!
I wanted to first start off this post by apologizing. I have not been as active on my site in the past month as I would have liked. I am hoping to change all that going forward…
As some of you know, I recently upgrade my setup. I am now shooting with a Canon 5D Mk3. I am still shooting with the same fisheye (Canon 8-15 f/4 L Fisheye). I also had to upgrade my housing. With that, I had a custom black SPL created.
With the new setup in hand, I have actually been getting out on a regular basis shooting the June Gloom waves and lack of sunsets. Here are some of the images that I have taken thus far with the new setup. We have a good swell coming through on the holiday weekend, so look for more and more new shots…
And Yes....I still have the Flash going....
There will be lots of shooting this 4th of July weekend so look for new shots soon...
Thanks....Ron