Experimenting
While I love black and white photos I do, reluctantly, venture into the world of color from time to time. Sometimes black and white can't tell the full story; at least that's what others say. More rare than a color set from me would be me heading out with the intent to shoot in color. To top it off I would have a tripod with me, something that's even more foreign than color. Well the planets must have aligned recently because that is just what I did.
Photo: Morgan Maassen
I find much inspiration the work of surf photographer Morgan Maassen. His take on surf photography feels fresh and different than anything I've ever seen. Morgan uses shadows, silhouettes and black and white to convey the emotion of a scene. If you haven't seen his work you should definitely check it out. As I was looking through his pictures one day I noticed a series that almost looked like paintings. There were different colors and shades stretching horizontally across the image. Turns out this is Morgan's take on a sunset. Basically he takes long exposure panning shots of the sunset and ocean. The pictures are truly amazing.
Knowing what Morgan was able to do, I struck out down to the beach just before sunset to try my hand at some long exposure shots. Once you get the tripod level it's pretty easy to bang off several frames, while always looking out for the rogue wave looking to eat your camera equipment. Other people watching the sunset seemed to be staring at me trying to figure out why I was rapidly spinning my camera back and forth seemingly at random. Little did they know that I actually had a plan — well, kind of.
You can see the results of this fun experiment below.