There are evenings I just get restless.  I see the light start to change as the "magic hour" approaches and I have to get out and photograph something.  Fortunately for me, I live no more than 10 minutes from a selection of beautiful beaches, perfect for seascape photography. 

That was the beginning of this image, created at Potato Bay on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.  I can usually tell whether or not the sunset will be interesting.  By interesting I mean more than just the sun disappearing behind the horizon.  That can be interesting as well, but I look for clouds.  Clouds will shape the light.  They will bend it and give it color, and they will create space and shadows.  We don't typically think about shadows in the sky, but if you've ever seen the sun's rays coming through the clouds, then you've seen the shadows also.  

I had been to this spot before, but I didn't get the image I wanted.  And I knew I wouldn't see the sunset from here.  But I had a hunch the sky would be nice.  As I have found so many times before, it is best to be prepared than to watch the moment pass wishing I had my camera (I still find myself in the latter situation sometimes).  It was a somewhat precarious walk to this spot over slippery rocks with the waves crashing on my feet and climbing at some points.  I was trying to get to the point you see left-center of the image.  I made it just past the breaking waves and reached a situation where it was wade, then climb, so I decided I'd save that one for a day I was more prepared.  

Calypso Bay, St. Kitts, West Indies So, I set up here.  My initial instinct, when it comes to seascape photography, is to capture the contrast of motion and rigid objects.  I like photographing solid rocks and structures standing still while the ocean waves smash into them repeatedly.  With a long exposure, 1/10th of a second all the way up to 30 seconds or more, I can capture the water as it streams off the rocks, creating streaks and giving a sense of movement in the image.  But this approach just didn't work here.  I was ending up with streaks on the rocks, but a mess in the ocean. 

I could see the blue-green in the water and I wanted to capture that too.  Then, I remembered my Uncle John.  Uncle John sent me a message last week saying he would like to see some images where the surf wasn't blurred, indirectly challenging me to use a faster shutter speed.  This is where things get a little bit "techy".

I'm using a Nikon D7100.  While shooting landscapes I almost always have a circular polarizer (CPL) on, for two reasons: 1) because I gain about 2 stops of light (I like long exposures) and 2) because it helps saturate the colors in the scene and add contrast to the sky.  The CPL was on, for this image, my Tamron 10-24mm wide angle lens; an important lens for landscape photography.  I shoot at ISO 100 most of the time because this give me the best image quality.  And I try to keep it between f/8.0 and f/16.0 for maximum depth of field and sharpness.  At f/22.0 my lens tends to lose quite a bit of sharpness.  And I shoot RAW.

In order to increase my shutter speed, I opened up to f/8.0 and stopped the ISO up to 800.  Could I have taken the CPL off?  Sure!  And it might have been a good idea.  I could have used a lower ISO like 200 and got a little bit cleaner image.  But in the moment, standing on rocks with waves crashing at your feet, boosting the ISO was the most efficient thing to do.  I was able to get shutter speeds around 1/80th of a second which was enough to stop the motion father away from me and still have a little bit in the foreground.  

I was very pleased when I got home and really had a chance to look at the images.  This was NOT the image I wanted.  But I love it!  I think this is an important point when it come to photography and art in general.  The image you have in mind isn't always the best.  Look around, try different techniques, take suggestions from your Uncle John, because the end result is progression and growth.  

Visit my LANDSCAPE GALLERY to see more images like this.