View from Cobble Beach, Newport, Oregon
I don’t know why, but I am really drawn to the water. Any water. Rivers. Streams. Lakes. But mostly the ocean. I am in the middle of giving final exams in my classes and I am really wishing I was at the beach with my camera instead. It doesn’t help matters that everywhere I turn I have photographs reminding me of how much I enjoy the coast.
One reason, I think, that I enjoy photographing moving water so much is the variety that it offers. You can stop the waves and capture every droplet of water as it sprays toward the shore, you can slow things down and capture the flow of the water over the rocks, or you can go anywhere in between. What I am feeling at the time usually dictates how I see the water and how I will photograph it. I often teach, especially in my beginner courses, to experiment with different exposure settings to see what happens to the image. I rarely do much experimenting when out photographing. I see what I see, my vision, and that is what I photograph. In earlier days I did the experimenting. I learned what happens when I use a long shutter speed. I learned how fast I needed to shoot to stop the water in a fast-flowing river. Now I spend more time experiencing the scene and then photographing it the way I feel it to be. The techniques have become my tools. I use these tools to create images resembling my vision. The tools enhance my creativity.
This particular evening at Cobble Beach, I met the Park Ranger as I was descending the steps to the beach. I was informed that I must be off the beach 10 minutes before sunset and out of the park 10 minutes after sunset. This threw a damper in my plans, as I love photographing long after the sun goes down. I felt rushed to get what I wanted, and upon reviewing my photographs from that evening, I think it affected me. Instead of creating soft, flowing images of a relatively smooth sea, I found myself using an “in between” shutter speed that would enhance the waves and make the scene appear more turbulent than maybe it really was. All of my exposures showed that look and feel. It was definitely different than what I shot the rest of that trip. It was proof to me that my emotions do affect the way I see, and therefore the way I photograph. I like it that way!
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