The Photo

I took this one a few months ago on an evening when we had beautiful flame red skies.
I was on my way to someone’s house and only had time to get to a place I’ve shot many times before: This rock, which I’ve photographed from various angles many times over the course of the year.

Technique

The rock has so many great textures and lines, and I spent 35 minutes shooting from both sides of it, and from above, but the angle I liked best was this low one, with the afterglow reflecting from the wet surface. I took a few shots with the water washing around and over the sides of the rock, but when I looked at the files later, I preferred the shot’s I’d done with less water, and the sky reflecting in the wet sand after the waves had retreated down the beach.

I measured the exposure by from the rock and the foreground, and then used a two stop neutral density filter to give the sky the same level of brightness as it’s reflection in the sand. The problem here was that the filter covered the top of the rock, darkening it to the point where detail was lost to shadow.
I took another shot, with an exposure about one stop brigher, giving me detail in the rock which I could blend with the main photo in post processing.

Post Processing

To get detail in the rocks, I blended another image underneath this one, using the brush tool with a low opacity to blend the lighter exposure of the rock with the main image.
I then reimported the image into Aperture, where I applied minor adjustments to the Vibrancy and levels.

The image was finally sharpened for the web, and a title was added.

Metadata

Taken in Praia do Guincho, Cascais, Portugal
Nikon D80 | Sigma 10-20mm | Nikon Cable release
Manfrotto 190XProB w/ 322RC2 ballhead
Lee 0.6 (2 stop) hard GND
2 seconds | f13 | 10mm

Workflow in Apple Aperture and PS