Saturday 19 November 2011

The Story Behind the Picture: Beyond the Storm

This image is by Christine Oliphant who won the print and digital Progress competitions in 2011

This image was taken at D’Amado, on the Alentejo coast of Portugal. Dark rain filled clouds threatened to end any aspirations of getting a decent sunset shot, but undeterred I thought if by any chance the sky played ball I needed to be in position. As D’Amado is on the west coast I knew that if the sun did make an appearance I would be shooting into it and the rock formations would be silhouetted against the sky. The tide was going out, but I counted that every 7th wave was a big one and would come further up the beach than the others, so found a rather nice stone in a rock pool to use as my foreground interest, and waited for the 7th wave. A few gaps started appearing in the threatening clouds, just enough to show some sunset colour, and choosing a slowish shutter speed to get some movement in the incoming wave, I waited for my next big 7th wave and pressed the shutter button. When doing long exposures it is always hit and miss as to the patterning in the water, but I was delighted when I saw that I had managed to capture the water movement behind the rock but had timed it so that the rock pool was still very still and clear in front of the rock. Pure luck and fortuity in that respect!!

Shot in RAW, white balance corrected in Adobe Camera Raw, slight rotation to straighten a wonky horizon ( tripod sinking in wet sand). Nikon D300s, Sigma 10mm – 20 mm wide angle lens, Lee 0.9 hard grad filter. Aperture f13, shutter speed 0.5 s.

Chris Oliphant

Beyond The Storm. Christine Oliphant

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