Posts in Category: shells
Morning shells
Shells, Velano Beach, St. Augustine FL
We are in St. Augustine Florida for the Florida Birding and Photo Fest where I will lead a series of Point and Shoot Nature Photography workshops. This is shells in the dawn light on the beach across from our Airbnb…a lovely house which we share with a few other guests.
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR. Processed in Lightroom.
Shell in the Beach Rime.
I am not actually quite sure how these large crystals of ice formed where they did, in little foot square patches along the high water mark on the beach near our home. There was a large stretch of open sand above these patches, where previous high tides had cleared the snows of last week off the beach, and, at low tide yesterday, close to 70 yards from the here to the water. It looks like rime, which is generally frozen mist or spray, and indeed may be frozen spray from the high edge of the surf hours ago, but I just don’t know. It is the extreme localization and specialization of the patches that has me wondering. Why just there, and why not elsewhere? What I do know is that these patches really caught my eye…those long, almost fibrous crystals, and the jumble of them, with the sand showing through. I had to find a shell set among them for a still life.
Canon SX50HS at 632mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80. Snow Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/21/2010
Coquina at Washington Oaks
According to the Wiki on the subject, Coquina is a relatively rare rock made up of masses of ancient shells and shell fragments loosely cemented together, some still largely intact. It is found in isolated outcrops along the Atlantic coast, from St. Augustine to Palm Beach, FL, and in one spot in North Carolina. There is also an outcrop in New Zealand. It is soft, so soft that it can only be used for building after air drying or curing for up to 3 years. The Fort in St. Augustine is built from it…which was a considerable advantage, since the soft walls absorbed (literally) canon ball fire better than harder stone would have.
It is the softness that, in large part, also gives Coquina its photographic interest. The waves shape it into an incredible variety of forms as they wash over it. Close in, the structure of the stone itself is of interest, as a study in shape and texture; especially as the density of the surface and its structure, as well as the color, varies greatly from stone to stone.
All with the Canon SX20IS. 1) 28mm @ F4.0 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80, 2) 28mm @ F4.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80, 3) 250mm macro @ F5.0 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80, 4) 200mm macro @ F5.0 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 80.
The first two got my standard landscape treatment in Lightroom. Recovery for the sky, a touch of Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. The close ups received similar treatment but with very little Recovery and less Fill Light. Less of everything actually, except sharpen.
8/11/2009
Track: art in the artifacts of change.
Of course this is not really a picture of a footprint. The footprint only provides a point of focus for what is essentially a study in texture and shape…and the way the low sun of early evening interacts. Rock, sand, snail shells, and broken crab. A feast of color, light, and texture.
For this kind of shot, you have to wake up your eye…your inner eye…the part of you that sees image possibilities in the chance arrangements (if you believe in chance) of the world around you. The Art in the artifacts of change. (Maybe I should copyright that phrase before someone steals it 🙂
Sony DSC H50 at about 285mm equivalent to frame the shot. F4.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom, simple added Clarity and Vibrance, a touch of Recovery for the crab shell, a touch of blackpoint for overall depth, and the Landscape sharpen preset.
5/2/2009
Shell Brook
South of St. Augustine, the white Florida sand is mixed with crushed shells. The Atlantic is a much more vigorous shell crusher than the Gulf of Mexico. Where rock outcroppings occur, as here, the shells heap up and form interesting patterns. Streams. Brooks. Little oceans of shell.
Taken from beach level using the fold out LCD panel on the H50.
Sony DSC H50 at about 36mm equivalent. F8.0 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Because of the range of light and dark here, I used a considerable amount of Fill Light in Lr. Standard Clarity and Vibrance for the H50, Landscape sharpen preset.
From St. Augustine FL.