Beach

Summer Dreamin'

Winter's Beach

Winter's beach can be as serene and peaceful as summer's. Maybe more so with quiet's presence.

With an almost all-white composition, I made sure to compensate so my image would not end up under-exposed. If left for the light meter to decide, it would be a dull and dark image. I "pushed my whites to the right" on my histogram and ended up with an appropriately exposed photo.

I shot at a speed of 1/500 and aperture of f/8. ISO was fixed at 100, as is my habit.

I added a textured layer in photoshop that also brought a touch of colour to the sky.

Beach Sights - Beach Sounds

Seeing this shot, I immediately hear beach sounds. I hear the loons and geese, children playing in the sand, laughter from the dock, and splashing as the youthful dive into the lake water. Though I see none of that, it is all here.

In composing this shot, I made sure not to split my image in half. For many shots, equal amounts of foreground and background in an image is boring and divides attention enough to lose attention.

Choosing more beach to balance the dominating red posts and less lake to accompany the smaller buoys made for a more interesting image than one where the space is evenly allotted.

I shot with an aperture of f/8, shutter speed of 1/250 and my focal length was 55.

Brereton Lake, Manitoba

Seagull

Flying high and seemingly far apart at times, the gulls remain connected by their calls across the water. They are strong enough to go out on their own but always come back to each other. They belong.

The fun of this image was playing with it in processing. I started by applying a preset in Lightroom (Hallowed Black) and then brought it into Photoshop to play some more, trying out a few textures before I found the one I liked the best.

Coming Home

After a day out fishing, the gull glides onto the golden beach. Home.

I used my zoom lens to get as close as possible to the gulls without scaring them away. I composed this shot using the shoreline to help draw attention to the subject. Including all of the gull's shadow was important. Too often we see shadows cut off in images. Bringing the image into photoshop to add a texture layer enhanced the image and brought a real sense of coming home at the end of the day with the golden hue.

Beach Flowers and Beach Berries

There to explore the whole of the beach, not just the water and sandy shore, we hiked off into the sand dunes. I was delighted to see things I would have missed had we stayed seated on our beach chairs. The Flowers and berries, driftwood and dunes broadened our beach experience.

Though sand is not my camera's friend, I decided to take most of my gear along to the beach. With fewer people early in the season and a calm day, I thought it might be worth the risk. Changing lenses on a sandy beach takes extra care but thankfully I had an extra set of hands to help me out with this.

In the two pictures in this post I used my macro lens. Wee tiny, the flowers and berries both would have been lost to a standard lens.

Day at the Beach

I went to the beach with my daughter today. How I love the beach! We had the sand and sun to ourselves for about an hour before a smattering of beach-goers joined us. The hot sun and calm day were perfect!

The gulls seemed more timid than those that circle at high season. Eventually one came close to where we were but for the most part they kept their distance.

Spending the day together with my daughter, getting sun-kissed at the beach and listening to some golden oldies on the open road on the way back was exactly what I needed!

Winter's Beach

Looking for the unusual often brings me the image. Here we have two pictures of a frozen lake with a frosted line of trees in the background. Winter. Winter with a sailboat. Beached, of course, but even so, a sailboat. In the second picture, the sailboat is missing but the tree in the foreground can easily be replaced in my mind's eye by a palm tree, like those snapshots often taken on hot getaway vacations.

How quickly I drift between quiet winter afternoons and calm summer days. My vessel through these seasons is the sailboat.

Summer Sets

Spotlight - Gull's Beach

They moved as one. Scores of gulls banded together and covered the sky with one swoop. To be the lone witness was humbling.

Spotlight - Still

Spotlight - Love in Loss

The past couple of years have included highly challenging and deeply painful times. These times of loss and suffering have allowed me to see Grace and Love in ways I likely would not have had the pain and loss been absent.

This past October I was at the lake with some friends for a weekend away. Walking along the beach, ravaged by a freak weather bomb, a heart, calm and quiet, lay peeking out from the sand. It seemed as though it was just waiting for me to see it. The destruction was still all around me but in the midst of this, quiet and calm were present.

Love in Loss

Gulls' Beach

They moved as one. Scores of gulls banded together and covered the sky with one swoop. To be the lone witness was humbling.

Gulls' Beach

Favourite Things

1. Beach Sign Burlap Pillow Cover by myadobecottage

2. Petite Love Stone by sjengraving

3. Turkish Bath Towel by AllOrganicTextiles

4. Misty Beach Trail by WideEyesPhotography

5. Needle Felt Bowl by joannadances

6. Raffia Sun Hat by raffique

7. Nautical Theme Print by elgarboart

8. Pleated Bag by bellybaloo

9. Message In A Bottle by periwinkleprints

10. Tall Deck Chair and Matching Tall Ottoman by FloridaCoolChairs

11. Bread and Butter Bag by SkyBox

Water

Beach Day

Looking forward to warmer days ahead...

With the temperature forecasted to feel like -43 celsius with the windchill factored in today, I am dreaming of warm days by the lake.