Breakwater

Breakwater [Canon 5D]
Honolulu, Hawai'i
April 13, 2008
(click in the image to see a  larger view)

This is a blend of two 30-second exposures of one of the breakwaters at Waikiki Beach. The waves sloshed over my feet and the bottom of my tripod a couple of times while making this image.

The reason I took two shots is that even with 30 seconds and all the ambient light of the hotels behind me, the rocks on the breakwater were much darker than I wanted them to be. I didn't do a longer exposure because I didn't want the sky to wash out. So I used my Canon 580EX speedlite to flash the foreground three or four times during one of the 30-second exposures and then combined the two shots in Photoshop using a layer mask. There were also some adjustment layers added that further darkened the sky and lightened the water and modified the color balance a bit.You can see the Layers palette for the finished image below.

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5-Day Creative Collage Workshop

I'll be teaching a 5-day version of my Creative Collage class at the excellent Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging in Los Osos, California June 2 - 6, 2008. The extended time frame of this class allows for more time to explore personal collage projects, not to mention enjoying the beautiful natural surroundings on the coast near Morro Bay. More about this class.

Comments

[dan king]

Hello! i like the wintry suitcase picture. i self publish wintry art books i was wondering if you have any good snowy forest pics that you might be able to send me? i would like to use one in my next book. its a non profit type of thing, i take many pics myself but im in victoria bc and it rarely snows... i really liked your snow pic, minus the suitcase lol im toronto1ca@yahoo.com please let me know, thank you!