30 Seconds

I am new here and this is my first picture post, a self portrait of sorts.....

Being new to this forum perhaps I have posted in the wrong forum, please let me know if so.

This was taken at Dockweller beach which separates LAX from the pacific, an often empty beach due to the noise of jet engines. The camera was on a tripod somewhere around 30-40 feet behind me and although there was hardly anyone around it was still nerve racking that I could not look at my camera to make sure nobody ran off with it for 30+ seconds at a time...... sometimes it is difficult to find some body that wants to stand in the dark ocean in november for the sake of a picture so you have to do it yourself

The waves came as high as mid-calf and the water was rapidly washing the sand away from underneath my feet although both of those are seemingly unnoticeable due to the long exposure

Charlie,

This is an exceptional well thought out and executed personal vision. I can see there's grain but not sure if it's digital noise or film. It seems to have the nice grain of something like the Ricoh GRDII. In any case I like it very much and will return to add more comment.

This may be of a series and part of a long term goal then it might belong in Riskit! forum. Let's learn what siblings this picture has. For now, it's in a good home and welcome!

Thanks for sharing.

Asher

Charlie

I think this is outstanding. Thankyou for sharing it and the process you went through to make theimage. Could you add sometjhing of how you came up with the idea and your intent - it is a poweful image and the suggestion of grain is just right in my view.

Welcome to the forum.

Mike

I like this image, grain is perfect : what camera was used for it ? Digital or analog ?

Thanks for commenting,

The camera used was a Nikon D200 set to ISO 500, 30 seconds at f/5.6. In camera long exposure noise reduction was on but as you can see the D200 is a noisey camera in certain situations which sometimes works well, and sometimes is undesirable.

I had stuck the handle of a golf club straight down into the sand to achieve focus then I would put the camera on timer run up there and throw the club out of the way. It took between 5 to 10 tries to get it right, I played with different compositions but in the end centered worked best for me.

A series of this could be quite fun.

The reason for doing this? ever since I first got into photography I have been attracted to long exposures, particularly of the ocean. I had seen somebody else shoot a long exposure scene with a person instead of the typical rocky beach that is so common and after having that picture/idea stuck in my head for probably over a year one day I finally decided to have my try at it and this is the result.