Long Exposure Water

Characteristics of this type of shot: A sunset shot with smooth, silky water.

Ingredients: There’s a lot of standing and waiting involved, and that’s really all there is to a shot like this—waiting around until enough water reaches the hole so your long exposure of the water looks decent. The day I was there, I couldn’t do a long enough exposure to get the seawater outside the well to be super silky—the water would rush in and right back out too quickly. So, the main ingredient, here, is patience. Unfortunately, there was a thick marine layer of hazy clouds, so the sun didn’t so much “set” as it just kind of went away, leaving me with a not-so-awesome sky, so I concentrated on the composition of the well itself (note the high horizon line, which limits how much sky you see). I used the rocks in front of me as a foreground to draw the eye to the well. I’m standing on the rocks and my tripod legs are in the water. It wasn’t long before a wave came up and totally drenched me and my gear. Note: This shot, and the one on the facing page, were both shot at the same location.

Location: Thor’s Well, Yachats, Oregon, USA.

Camera settings: Shot in aperture priority mode; 14mm f/2.8 lens; ISO 100 at f/20; shutter speed: 1/4 of a second. I didn’t have an ND filter with me, so I used f/20 to keep the shutter open longer. I could have gone to f/22 to keep it open a little longer, but the water was gone so fast it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.