The Occasional Odd Crop

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Where: Ocean Beach pier, San Diego

When: May 2011

I love photos of water just doing what it does, but I've seldom shot them myself. When I had some spare time the other day, I decided to fix that by photographing the biggest body of water in the world, the Pacific Ocean.

Turns out, good photos of the ocean are hard to make. Since the water is constantly moving, composition is difficult. The bright foam and dark water make for interesting contrasts and textures, but a lot of my ocean photos have blown-out highlights in the wrong places.

And colors? Sure, the ocean has those, but I don't want the only reaction to my photos to be, "Ooh! Pretty!"

I shot more than 100 photos of the water that day. About four of them are worth posting. For this one, I shot straight down from the pier; the water was maybe 20 feet away.

More to come ...