Yesterday was day two of DLWS, and it was “planned” to be a great day. The morning shoot we had a lovely model come in, a local girl that screams Hawaii. I’ll get back to her later. Now later that day we had planned to go somewhere that most people have never gone to before. It was an opportunity that is beyond compare. But I’m not gonna show that one yet either! I know I’m mean. What am I going to show and talk about? This is Hanalei Bay, one of the best beaches on the north shore. It is a pretty cool place. To the west and east are mountains, to the north is just open sea, and the beach is just a long curve. There is also a very nice pier. It one went out into the water maybe 200ft, great cement posts, wood structure and of course some nice clouds.
Now when i was composing i was thinking of the beach, the waves and the angle of the pier to the clouds. I was taking all of this in trying to make the best image possible. Well there was one thing that i didn’t take in on capture which costed me later. In post when i was processing i realized that the background behind the pier was dark enough and the structure had no light on it, so that the open space between the back two posts blended in with the structure. Now it appears that the pier melded into the mountain and doesn’t look good. It was a pretty stupid thing to do. How to fix it? Real simple, move! Yep if i had walked a couple more feet away the sky would’ve been behind the pier and that problem would be solved.
After the pier i started focusing on the boats. I got kinda hooked on the boats during the catamaran ride and i wanted to work with them some more. Out in the bay was a luxury boat at anchor, moving with the wind. I started to play with it. The first thought i had so to go black and white. It has a long white mast, and white top side. It pops well with a dark background. The light at that time was flat, background sucked. There was low cloud cover and the forest looked just boring. So going dark and eliminating as much of that mountain works well. Now this isn’t a documentary landscape image, it’s more of a graphic artistic look. By being a little imaginative, at this one shoot, multiple images were made beyond just the I’m at the beach image.
Images captured with Nikon D3, AF-S 24-70, AF-S 70-200, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film