Bequia Photography: Lower Bay Surges
11th March 2013
Bequia Photography
Lower Bay Surges
The promised surge that has been coming across the Atlantic, into the Caribbean Sea arrived today, with its swell and waves powering up the beaches, across the walkways and making everything on the Northern side of the island, rather exciting.
Walking down the Belmont Walkway, you had to take your life in your hands, unless you wanted to get soaked through and the poor yachties who had moored off Princess Margaret Beach or Lower Bay, certainly had a restless day and night, swinging around in the swell.
Lower Bay was as usual the most fun, with the waves crashing right up to the top of the beach, washing away all evidence of any human presence; no footprints in the sand left behind today.
The light was very dull, overcast and grey, so I headed out to play in the crashing waves and surges, but soon decided it was worth the effort to capture the moment. It was one of those occasions when I wish I had foot long spikes on the feet of the tripod, as it sank further into the sand with each passing wave.
I was slowing the movement of the water down through the use of neutral density filters. The Lee Big Stopper was too strong for yesterdays overcast lighting, as I only wanted a 1 second exposure, so had to use a 1.2ND instead, the slowest ISO I could set (ISO100) and toned down the sky with a 0.6NDSG. It was a good opportunity to use a soft graduated filter, instead of the usual hard ones, as with the surge came the white water running across the sea and up the beach, so a soft grad helped to tone all of this down a little.
Lower Bay Surges
The promised surge that has been coming across the Atlantic, into the Caribbean Sea arrived today, with its swell and waves powering up the beaches, across the walkways and making everything on the Northern side of the island, rather exciting.
Walking down the Belmont Walkway, you had to take your life in your hands, unless you wanted to get soaked through and the poor yachties who had moored off Princess Margaret Beach or Lower Bay, certainly had a restless day and night, swinging around in the swell.
Lower Bay was as usual the most fun, with the waves crashing right up to the top of the beach, washing away all evidence of any human presence; no footprints in the sand left behind today.
The light was very dull, overcast and grey, so I headed out to play in the crashing waves and surges, but soon decided it was worth the effort to capture the moment. It was one of those occasions when I wish I had foot long spikes on the feet of the tripod, as it sank further into the sand with each passing wave.
I was slowing the movement of the water down through the use of neutral density filters. The Lee Big Stopper was too strong for yesterdays overcast lighting, as I only wanted a 1 second exposure, so had to use a 1.2ND instead, the slowest ISO I could set (ISO100) and toned down the sky with a 0.6NDSG. It was a good opportunity to use a soft graduated filter, instead of the usual hard ones, as with the surge came the white water running across the sea and up the beach, so a soft grad helped to tone all of this down a little.