This is great! I have been thinking about taking these kind of photos, but haven't gotten around to it. Do you have a
Flickr page? Makes it easy to keep up with each other's Photos. Some of the people here have them.
Thanks a lot
You should have a try, all you need is a tripod and a cable release. The ND filter made these possible as they were taken when the sun was in the sky, but after sunset, or before sunrise you can get relatively long exposures without one. You do need ND graduated filters for the sky though, or it will be too bright.
As for Flickr, I should really...but the Deviant Art page takes up so much time, and unlike Flickr, DA brings me income because I sell quite a few prints through the page, and it's also brought me attention which has got my work bought for things like CD covers and concert flyers etc, as well as the offer to write for the magazine. I can't really let the DA page slip because it's beneficial to my photography.....but a flickr page would be useful I guess....if I can find the time.
I'm not a fan of what long exposure times do to water. Makes it look really weird, IMO.
Any way to get pictures that look the same but with normal water?
Sure.
Both of the long exposures here used a very thick neutral density filter called a Hoya ND400, which cuts out around 90% of the light and forces a long exposure.
Without the filter, both would have been "normal" length exposures (around half a second) and the water would have looked normal.
I actually always take a "straight" shot first, to ensure the shot is evenly exposed across the frame (no clipped highlights or lost shadow detail), and to compose the shot, because when the filter is screwed in, you can't see through the camera's viewfinder.
It's personal preference, and long exposures sometimes do look inappropriate. I like to use them on water that doesn't have much movement because I always try to create "clean" images, where the eye isn't pulled all over the frame by different details in the water. In the second image for example, the long exposure has made is possible to see the shapes of the rocks under the water, which looks like glass. The water also now feels like an extension of the sky.
A regular exposure would have made the sky and water completely different and taken away from the calm feeling of the scene, and the rocks would have been impossible to see because of the "visual noise" of the waves, and that also would detract from the focus point of the scene, which is the warm morning light on the cliff face.
Well, that's the rationale behind it, but ultimately any photograph is only as good as the emotion is creates in the people who see it...and if it's not your thing, then it's just not your thing.
I don't always use long exposures, infact if time and light permit I'll try to do both and then choose which one I prefer.
