Usually the retreating tide at this little North Devon seaside town leaves a completely flat surface on the sand. On this particular spring day in May this year there was absolutely no wind and virtually no waves to speak of. The result was the tide left this striking pattern in the sand that covered the entire beach. I have never seen the beach quite like this so as sunset approached I set off down the beach with my large format camera and tripod.
I made a total of 5 exposures that evening. this, the 3rd, is my favourite. My original composition was actually a horizontal one, but I had neglected to consider the effect the cloud, moving in from the East, was having on the sand in front of me.
It was about a hour after sunset and in the dim light the eye is easily deceived and I failed to notice how dark the sand in the right hand side bottom corner of the composition was. Most of the sand was too dark for my spot meter to give a reading anyway so the difference in light across the composition remained unnoticed. I was largely guessing how much light was reflected from the sand.
By simply taking a full vertical crop from the left hand side of the image I eliminated the distracting dark area and improved on the original composition by giving impact from a less cluttered foreground. The foreground is still dark, but this is very much how I wanted it to be. The darkness helps isolate the raised ridges of the delicate patterns in the sand and adds mystery that would have been missing had I simply placed a stronger neutral density graduated filter over the sky and increased exposure.
I have noticed that it is currently popular to to produce photographs with as much shadow detail visible as possible. Perhaps I am wrong but it seems to me this is somehow a statement of the photographer's prowess, "my shadow detail is bigger than yours". They might seem impressive when you first them, but to me these "HDR" images often lack emotion and mystery and the viewer's interest is soon lost because these cold images have failed to connect to the viewer. Can the photographer, almost blind in the dusk light, really say that they could see every tiny detail in the dark shadows before them? Assuming the answer to this is no, then I suggest perhaps their image does not convey the true emotions they felt.
I made a total of 5 exposures that evening. this, the 3rd, is my favourite. My original composition was actually a horizontal one, but I had neglected to consider the effect the cloud, moving in from the East, was having on the sand in front of me.
It was about a hour after sunset and in the dim light the eye is easily deceived and I failed to notice how dark the sand in the right hand side bottom corner of the composition was. Most of the sand was too dark for my spot meter to give a reading anyway so the difference in light across the composition remained unnoticed. I was largely guessing how much light was reflected from the sand.
By simply taking a full vertical crop from the left hand side of the image I eliminated the distracting dark area and improved on the original composition by giving impact from a less cluttered foreground. The foreground is still dark, but this is very much how I wanted it to be. The darkness helps isolate the raised ridges of the delicate patterns in the sand and adds mystery that would have been missing had I simply placed a stronger neutral density graduated filter over the sky and increased exposure.
I have noticed that it is currently popular to to produce photographs with as much shadow detail visible as possible. Perhaps I am wrong but it seems to me this is somehow a statement of the photographer's prowess, "my shadow detail is bigger than yours". They might seem impressive when you first them, but to me these "HDR" images often lack emotion and mystery and the viewer's interest is soon lost because these cold images have failed to connect to the viewer. Can the photographer, almost blind in the dusk light, really say that they could see every tiny detail in the dark shadows before them? Assuming the answer to this is no, then I suggest perhaps their image does not convey the true emotions they felt.
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